Murphy's Law
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Being intersex might not have been so bad, maybe, if I hadn't grown up in a world where any abnormality immediately marks you out for ridicule. Being pregnant might not have been so bad either, if I trusted anyone enough to tell them the truth. Various pairings. Mpreg. Gritty. First draft; quality will be variable.
1. 01

**A/N:** For a long time - more than three years, in fact - I swore that this story would never see the light of day. It was too stupid, too preposterious, too far removed from anything else I'd ever written, and until recently I wouldn't even admit that I'd planned it. But the truth was as stupid as 99% of mpreg is, I wanted to see if I could pull it off.

This story has gone by many names and had many incarnations, but after I ended up with a timeline ten years long and more complex than anything else I'd ever planned, I knew I had to write it. So this month I'm doing a sort of personal NaNoWriMo with this story. I hope you enjoy it!

**Warning:** This is mpreg. Expect the worst.

* * *

Even after I've stopped screaming, it takes me a long time to let go of the duvet. I gasp for lungfuls of stale, acrid air, one hand resting on the bloody skin of my burst illusions, the other still clenched tight in the folds of the duvet cover, which like everything I touch is wet and clingy with sweat. After the exploding pain of the last hundred thousand hours, the silence is deafening. I took my watch off as soon as I got home and although I assume it's nestled somewhere among my supplies in the footwell, I don't know where: but it's the middle of the night, right when the only light is coming from my cheap torch, illuminating the scene like a clever set-up for a horror movie.

After a longer while, when I've finally managed to detach myself from the duvet, I dare to stretch my legs a little, experimentally. The tired muscles protest loudly at me, but I persevere until the tips of my toes reach the opposite door, the cold plastic stinging against me and the undersides of my thighs just brushing the mess of innards and body fluids below me, hot and putrid. I can't breathe through my nose. I can hardly breathe at all. I want to reach up and open a window, but it's freezing outside, and worse still, I hardly even have enough energy to salvage the bottle of milk I prepared earlier and hold it up to my baby's lips. It gurgles as it feeds, comforting me in a sensation alien to the tired wreckage around me. I let my eyes slide closed for just a second, planning the things I need to do. Firstly, I need a cup of water. This is easier said than done: I already drank the bottle I had with me, and all the others are in the boot. The boot is like my kitchen; I keep all my food and crockery there and sometimes when it's not too cold I sit in amongst the tins of sweetcorn and packets of crisps to eat supper, staring out across the warehouse where plants and rats have made their homes in amongst the abandoned boxes, shelving and machinery. Then I need to let in some air and get rid of the stench of blood, wipe down my new baby and dress it in the baby clothes I bought last week. But I'm still hurting, still exhausted.

When my baby tires of feeding and falls asleep, I rummage around for my penknife to cut the umbillical cord away. I don't know how close to the baby I can cut. Does it hurt? I can't remember. Will my baby be stuck with a deformed belly button if I get this wrong? But I have to detatch it - her, a quick inspection reveals, _her _- from the mangled lumps that slithered out behind her so I saw away at the cord as close to her as I dare, then pull her away from the remains of her nine-month home. Then I bundle the duvet up and put her down, assessing the damage with my sticky, messy hands, trying not to move anything below my belly button or above my knees. This is almost impossible, and each tiny clench of muscles sends pain shooting through my body. But I have to move, or else I will seize up and die in amongst the linings of my own womb. I pick up the blanket I set down earlier and carry it away from the car; it's too badly stained to even consider trying to salvage it. What would the people working at the laundromat think? But the blood has seeped through into the seat of the car. I will clean it tomorrow.

I get out some baby wipes for their named purpose until her skin is as smooth as, well, a baby's bottom. Then I grapple with a nappy for a long time until it folds around her satisfactorily. The second hand onesie I found a charity shop goes on top, and then she almost looks like a normal baby and not the unholy offspring of me, Marluxia Braefern, a sixteen year old male virgin.

I need some music, to drown out the echoes of my screams still bouncing off the rusting steel walls of the warehouse. I pull on my puffer jacket and wobble out onto the dirt again, fumbling with new batteries for my Walkman. I'm still hurting, so much. The insides of my thighs feel like they've been punched repeatedly for hours on end. I glance down at myself, naked below the jacket, wondering if bruises are beginning to form there, but all I can see is the dark stain of more blood dribbling down my leg. I shiver almost comically, finding a clean-ish pair of pants and a sanitary towel. Thank God I knew how to use these things already, that a mother-figure was there to teach me how to get the pad in the right position so blood didn't slop over the sides, back when I first started bleeding.

I feel very calm. The only reason why I feel calm is that my mind cannot comprehend what has just happened. I am only thinking about banal things, like I don't know whether it's before or after midnight, so I don't know when my daughter's birthday is. That makes two of us. The doctors narrowed me down to either the thirteenth or the fourteenth of March, and I'm inclined to think that they picked the latter so I'd never have an unlucky birthday.

I return to my daughter once Elton John is soothing me with his sad lyrics, rock her back and forth in my arms. Everything is happening very slowly, like time stopped being light like air and suddenly became dense and sluggish. I try to hum along to Elton John but my throat is still too raw. Eventually I turn the Walkman off, because Elton John is singing the first song again and I can't be bothered to change the CD, and the silence squeezes my head again until I think I have a migraine. I've taken all my painkillers, though, even the ones you're not supposed to use if you're pregnant, so I lie down and put a towel over my head and try to sleep for a bit. That's when my baby wails suddenly and vomits the milk back up, all over me and all over my jacket and onto the blankets and things in the footwell. I don't move for a second, and then I feel a horrible pang of aggravation, as hard and sour as the agony between my legs.

I say, in a croaky voice: "Why did you do that?" This is the first thing I ever say to my daughter (screaming doesn't count). As though she understood me, she starts crying. I don't know what she wants: more milk? Comfort? Is she too cold or too hot? Does she already need a new nappy?

This is the moment when I start to collapse into a breakdown. I scrabble for a clean cloth, still gagging at the stench of blood and wincing at my aching pelvis, but my fingers can't quite grasp it and suddenly my whole body feels limp, like all the energy in my muscles has just drained through of my outstretched fingertips. The baby tumbles from my arm and hits a cardboard box. I begin to howl, wailing without restraint or reason, the fear of this great and terrible responsibility pouring out of me in every way, in tears and snot and sweat and terrified, inhuman cries. I pull the baby close to me, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, bent over, still hurting, still hurting so much, still breathing in thick sticky blood, still brown from the messy leftovers of labour, holding in my hands this brand new human soul, for whose safety and wellbeing I am entirely responsible, and who will die or be extracted from my care if I fail. Six months ago I was ditching school to smoke and drink with people I didn't trust enough to call friends, locking myself in my bedroom and ignoring the hustle and bustle of the family around me, stealing stupid little things like chocolate bars and small change from shops or people, pretending like I was hard to protect myself from how cruelly and mercilessly the world treats you if you're different.

I am not strictly male. I have "an intersex condition caused by genetic abnormalities", according to the doctors who sat me down when I was six or seven and just beginning to grapple with the concept of sex and gender. Basically, I have a penis and I also have a vagina. I think that the doctors decided that I should be raised as a boy because it would make my life minutely less shit, and luckily enough they turned out to be right. Sort of.

I look down at myself, still gasping for breath, a bit too butch to be a girl and a bit too effeminate to be a boy. In the torchlight I can see dark blotches on the inside of my legs, but I don't know if it's blood or bruises. I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow. And I need to get more washing up liquid and wipes to clean up the car. This menial thought calms me down long enough to pull my baby back from the abyss of the footwell, stroking her soft blonde hair, which is still a little damp. She looks at me, right at me, in a brief pause for air, and I think to myself: You are just a few hours old. This morning you were inside of me, kicking my lungs. How can you see right into my soul?

Her eyes aren't blue like mine; they're a kind of sea-water turquoise, big and wet and sad, already. I wonder if my mother's eyes were this colour. Or my father's. I don't think about my father much, because to me paternal figures seemed like the kind of adult that could come and go; but mothers are a different thing entirely. My mother died still wrapped around me, and while I can never know if she honestly loved me in those last few moments before her heart gave out to the cold, pretending that she did gives me something eternal to cling onto. Mothers are forever; at least, they're supposed to be. This is why I am living in a stolen car in an abandoned warehouse, cradling this tiny person in my arms, both of us crying because we are cold and hungry and afraid, and not at a hospital where they might have stopped me bleeding so much and I might not be in pain any more. Because if I went to a doctor they'd see that I was a teen delinquent and they'd take her away from me. So I held tight even when I had cramps so excruciating I wanted to pass out but couldn't, even when all the pregnancy books I borrowed from the library told me to go to the doctor every time something unusal happened, even though I might have died.

Finally after a lot more fumbling and crying, I successfully prepare a second bottle of milk for my new baby, which she drinks quite happily before falling asleep. I change my pad because I am still bleeding, and even dare to prod at myself a little to inspect the damage: but the pain that suddenly shoots through me is so fierce that I cry out and from then on only touch myself very gingerly to clear the blood away. It is thick and lumpy, like I'm having a period, so I assume I have not ripped anything to pieces and try not to panic. Then I lay a plastic bag over the stain on the car seat and make myself a new bed, wrapping myself up in blankets as I lay them down. After a few minutes, baby dribbling on my chest, I am almost warm. I fall asleep not because I am comfortable or because the pain has subsided, but because I am too exhausted to keep my eyes open for another second.

When I wake up shafts of light are slicing through the cool, damp mist inside the warehouse in a way that is almost beautiful. I stretch out, my joints clicking as I do so. The baby is awake, gurgling again in a way that makes me think she might suddenly begin to cry. So I pour the rest of the milk into the bottle and let her suck at it for a bit, but she's not interested.

Then I notice the smell and enjoy my first experience of changing a nappy. Feeling like I have to at least try to exercise a little, I wrap the dirty nappy up very tightly then carry it out to the other end of the warehouse. It is slow going; every step is agonising. I have definitely bruised, big ugly blotches all around my crotch, and after walking two lengths of the warehouse I am bleeding again, actual shiny red blood. I think I have torn something. I remember reading in a book at the library that there are four kinds of vaginal tears and one of them goes right down to your anus and needs sixty different stitches. I really hope that I don't have that kind of tear.

I return to the car and have a breakfast comprised of stale bread, crumby butter and buttery honey, then curl up on the back seat cuddling my baby. I think back to my fabricated visions of my own birth and everything that was missing from it, and decide that while the sky is clear and the light strong I should take a photograph of her.

I have this old disposable camera that a friend of mine and I bought together a long time ago. What we were going to do was take a photo of ourselves every three months until we used up the whole roll of film, at which point we'd get them all printed out. Her name was Larxene, and she was like me and also very different to me: we were both outsiders, loners with foster parents who were the first to smoke, the first to get pissed off our faces, the ones who bunked off school all the time, and didn't pay attention in class even when we bothered to turn up. But I was reserved and moody and introverted; she toyed with people like they were her personal playthings, fucking boys before I even met her and nicking things from shops without a care in the world. She was the one who convinced me to dye my hair pink. She even got a tattoo, from God knows where and blowing God knows how many people to get it.

I had to move away when we were fifteen, actually just a few months before my baby started making my stomach bulge, and I never saw her again. I hardly ever missed anybody, but Larxene was one of the few exceptions. She chose me even though people teased her for being friends with a shemale: to her, I was cool. But I kept the camera, even when I stole my foster parents' spare car to run away from home, with sixteen photos still left, because I had nothing else to tie me to her and my past that I bemoaned constantly but that was actually rather wonderful compared to my warehouse now.

I dress my baby up in the cleanest baby clothes I have and lay her down on the duvet, folding it over so there aren't any stains visible. Then I position the camera very carefully, and click! My baby is memorised in that little roll of film. I roll the camera over onto the next photo and put it away again, movements coming to me a little more easily now. But I still tire quickly, bundling back up into my blankets, this time making a nest for myself on the driver's seat. The driver's seat is like my sitting room: I keep the CDs for my Walkman there along with the pregnancy books I took out from the library to get through having my baby. I leaf through them again as she drinks more milk and throws some, but not all, of it back up again. I wonder if she's sick. I should take her to the hospital. I can wear my boy's clothes and pretend that the mother dumped her baby on me and did a runner. As I read up on placentas - "Some mothers will want to look at the placenta. After all, it's been feeding your baby for nine months!" the book says patronisingly, like I had a choice - I concoct a suitable alabi for the apparent absence of my daughter's mother. But it's a good five minutes' walk to the nearest bus stop, then two buses to the hospital: I'm not sure if my sore body can cope with that yet. So I stay by the car all day, tidying up, resting, feeding, cleaning. Mostly resting.

While I rest, I think about my baby. She needs a name. The responsibility of naming a child is a terrible burden to bear. I should know: I have the most ridiculous, annoying, impossible name ever to have disgraced this country. Actually, the logic behind my name is quite clever: I was born in Braefern Forest, the only place where a rare breed of pink daffodil - _narcissus marluxia_ - grows in the wild, and "Marluxia" is a name neither too masculine for a girl nor too feminine for a boy (although the latter could be disputed). However, _Marluxia Braefern_is also impossible to spell, impossible to pronounce, impossible to contract and impossible to remember. I do not want my daughter to bear the same cross. But I also don't want her to have a common, boring name like Kairi or Tifa. And so eventually after a lot of careful consideration I start to call her Larxene, after my old friend whose photographs still lie undeveloped in that old camera. Larxene Braefern. It's bitter, and suits a baby who cries constantly and pukes almost as much.

I spend a few more days in the warehouse, but I begin to run out of things so I decide that I need to just man up and go out. So I tie Larxene to my chest with a spare shirt and pull my jacket on over her, partly to keep her warm but also so that nobody notices that I had to wrap her up in a shirt, and with my money and my shopping list and a plastic bag full of whatever baby things I might need for the day I wobble out of the warehouse and, with some difficulty, through the gap in the chain link fence that's supposed to keep me out. From then on, it's an excruciating walk to the bus stop. I'm sure that I'm bleeding again, and my legs ache horribly. But I keep reminding myself that I need more food, and I need more painkillers, and I need more water, and I need more baby milk, and I need to take Larxene to the hospital. She throws up about half of what I feed her, and I'm beginning to think that she might be ill. I let this notion spur me on until I can finally rest on the bus stop seat, which hurts and hurts and hurts until my bus arrives and I pay my twenty five munny for a ticket and climb on, at which point the bus seat hurts and hurts instead. I get off at the high street and wobble on down to the shops, not sure if I can cope with another half an hour on a bus with my crotch in so much pain.

I go to the nearest supermarket and just as I'm picking up a shopping basket Larxene starts to wail. So I put it down again, feeling for the first time the red flush of embarrassment that comes with a publically sobbing child, and rush outside to the nearest bench to feed her. She drinks sloppily, staining my freshly-wiped jacket again, and after five minutes of bottom-patting vomits again. All this time, people walking by are giving me dirty looks. I ought to be immune to them by now. I have been living here pretending to be a girl so nobody questioned my heavily pregnant frame for four months: but I still shrink back when a group of boys whisper words like "slut" and "whore" as they pass by me, giving my greasy hair and tatty clothes distainful looks as they pass. I try not to let it get to me, because in actual fact my total abstinence from intimate encounters ought to have been guaranteed protection from parenthood, but that doesn't mean that I succeed.

Once Larxene's calmed down enough to be stuffed inside my jacket again I make a second attempt at shopping, this time getting right around the aisles until the noise of some yelling teenagers disturbs her and she lets out a siren-wail, ensuring my hasty retreat until they pay for their fizzy drinks and packs of sweets and bustle out of the shop. Then I lay my rather more mundane groceries on the conveyor belt, trying to calculate the total cost in my head but soon giving up and letting the till do the work. There's a lot more baby milk; I have to buy the pre-sterilised stuff because I don't have a microwave, which is much more expensive. I wondered with my chest becoming indecisive as to whether I needed breasts or pectorals as the pregnancy progressed whether I was going to end up breastfeeding, but all that came out was a bit of something I really didn't think a baby would want to drink, and that was that. So formula milk it was.

Next it's time to get the bus to the hospital. I have taken some painkillers, so I feel a little better during this ride, but then when I get to the reception I realise that I am still wearing a skirt and my hair is still tied up in a girly pony tail. What I wanted to do was tell the doctor that I was Larxene's father, but obviously this is no longer going to work. But as soon as I step into the building with its clean walls and sterile air I start to panic, remembering the invasive appointments of years passed, my terrible fear that they will take my baby away from me, and I am very nearly almost crying by the time I reach the desk and tell the secretary that I have a baby and I think she's sick and I need an emergency appointment. She directs me to Accident & Emergency, which is on the other side of the building. I wobble off, unsteadily, the pain more prominent now that I am afraid. I know that I am moving slowly, limping even, but they can't do anything to me unless I let them, can they? I am here to check on the health of my baby, and that is all. The doctors will not lay a finger on me.

I wait for half an hour in A&E until a very tidy lady with latex gloves on her hands arrives and introduces herself as Doctor Kennedy, and asks me to follow her into an empty office where she logs into her computer and we go through the usual motions of confusion that accompany my name: "It's with an X, an X. X-I-A. And it's A-E, not A-Y. Fern as in the plant. Yes." Then she begins to ask me questions about how I'm feeling and I say; "I'm here because I think the baby is sick."

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ears and says; "Yes, I know, but it's just important to know how the mother feels too."

"I'm not her mother," I say, and before her professional poker face returns I'm sure I can see her expression of increduity at my bare-faced lie.

"How are you related to the baby?" She asks instead. I scramble for a new explanation. I want to be her father. I want my name to be written on her birth certificate where it says "father", but I am dressed like a girl, and I don't think I could bullshit my way out of this one. So I say;

"I'm her aunt. She's my sister's baby. But she didn't want her. So I'm keeping her instead."

"How old is the baby?"

"Four days," I say. Then I happen to glance at the calendar on the wall. "Five. She was born on the twelfth."

Then Doctor Kennedy asks how Larxene has been feeding and I tell her about the vomiting. To my relief, and also my disappointment, I am told that this is normal for very young babies as they adjust to feeding. Then Doctor Kennedy asks if Larxene has been to the hospital before, and I tell her no, it was a home birth. Doctor Kennedy says she has to perform some routine check ups on the baby, like counting her fingers and toes and weighing her to make sure she's healthy. I nod in agreement, but I still find it hard to let go of Larxene when Doctor Kennedy walks over to lever her out of my arms. Nobody else has held her, nobody else has cuddled her or cooed over her (in fact, nobody has cooed over her at all yet), and I am afraid that if I relinquish my grip on her for just one second then she will never come back to me. Doctor Kennedy must see the pain in my eyes because she says "It's okay, your baby is in safe hands." What gets me is that she says _your baby_, because she knows that my "sister" is a complete fabrication. I start to cry.

Doctor Kennedy hands me a box of tissues and sits down with my baby cradled in her arms. She says "We get a lot of young girls here. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're very brave." But then she adds "I think it would be best for you to have a check up as well, especially if there wasn't a midwife present during labour," and I shrink away and try to grab Larxene back simultaneously, without saying anything at all because a lump of terror has formed in my throat. I want to get out, before I lose Larxene forever and she turns out like me. But Doctor Kennedy senses my fear, because she reaches over and gently strokes my shoulder. "I'll be very quick, then you can have your baby back." Then she steps away, and starts making observations, talking as she goes, to calm me down. First she counts her fingers and toes. Then she takes off Larxene's clothes and says "Everything looks normal," and then "Your baby is a girl,"

"I know," I say, "I called her Larxene."

"That's a nice name," says Doctor Kennedy as she gently lays Larxene down on the scales. One thing I notice is that Larxene does not protest at all while these proceedings are going on: I notice this because Larxene protests against everything that I do, almost unconditionally. But Doctor Kennedy has a way with babies, which is probably why she is a paediatric specialist. "She has a normal weight for her age. There are some slight deformations in her skull shape, but they should even out in a few weeks."

Yes, I think to myself, because she was squeezed through hips really not built for childbirth. Then Doctor Kennedy runs through a few more other things, and finally Larxene is back in my arms where she belongs, safe and sound. Mine. Mine mine mine.

Then Doctor Kennedy helps me to register Larxene's birth, which means I get a certificate that proclaims me her mother and her father "unknown", which makes me feel a little sick inside. I know exactly who her father is. But a lump forms in my throat again as I think about this, and I am so afraid of losing Larxene that I hardly even hear what Doctor Kennedy tells me as she fills in the certificate. Then she helps me to apply for child benefits, and finally tells me that I really should book an appointment with a gynaecologist to check that everything is okay with me. She even gives me a card to give to the receptionist, so I nod and pretend to agree with her to throw off the trail. But on the way out I throw the card in the bin and walk straight past the receptionist. I am too afraid of what's in my pants to get the help I know I so badly need.


	2. 02

I go back to work sooner than I want to, mostly because otherwise I won't be able to afford childcare for Larxene. The cost of babysitting is extortionate: after hours of picking through the confidentials the cheapest one I can find comes to about four hundred munny a day, which is ridiculous considering that I only earn three hundred and fifty munny a day. I don't understand how child benefit, which comes to two hundred munny a week, is supposed to cover these costs. But luckily when I go down to the job centre, they tell me that once I'm working I'll be eligible for enough tax credits to pay for child care and other important things, like food.

So when Larxene is two weeks old, I reapply for my job at a nearby food proccessing factory. They let me on straight away, probably because I don't need training and am therefore more cost effective than the other applicants. I catch the first bus of the day all the way into town, heading straight for the public toilets. In one of my carrier bags I have the baby things my new childminder will need; in the other I have a plastic wash basin, soap, shampoo, a sponge and a towel. Luckily, the piss-smelling building is empty, so I fill my bowl up with water at the sink and carry it into a cubicle. I wash myself down with great care, trying not to let too much water slop onto the floor. Then I get dressed in my dirty clothes again, which probably defeats the point of the entire exercise: but my hair, still with its remnants of bossy pink beneath two-inch mousy roots, feels nicer after a wash, and once I've towelled it down and applied some make up to my drawn face I almost look respectable. Then I then walk around with my body still hurting from the birth, sometimes even bleeding again, until I find the house of the woman who is going to be Larxene's part-time mother. After what happened at the hospital, where I could hardly let go of my baby and greedily snatched her back as soon as the Doctor was finished, I don't know how I'm going to say goodbye.

Mrs Merryweather is a middle-aged lady with an attractive face that suits her age and her gracefully greying hair. She is large, in a way that matrons ought to be, and cannot move without bustling. She has two children of her own, both in their teens, and as I arrive at the side door they're preparing packed lunches for school. And just like any time I see a family, when I see people my age with smiles on their faces and clean clothes, I think jealously: that could have been me. If the whole universe weren't tripping over itself trying to make me miserable.

"Hello," she says cheerfully, doing a very good job of masking any distain she might feel for this trampy teenage mother, "Are you Marluxia?" I nod without saying anything. She bustles aside to let me in. "Do come in for a cup of tea!"

I enter the kitchen. It is worn out but well kept nonetheless, the old appliances sparkling and little corners stained but clean. The children smile at me, and one of them says hello. I don't like looking at them, though. One of them is a boy and he's very cute, with big kind eyes like his mother, and I feel that familiar self-consciousness well up inside me, threatening to explode into a blush.

"I can't stay long," I manage to whisper (I always whisper, not trusting my unnatural falsetto), "I have to go to work soon."

Perhaps there is always a full pot of tea in this house, because almost instantly I have a steaming mug in front of me. I reach out gingerly, wrapping my fingers around the smooth china and pulling the cup close to my body. I glance at my watch. If my bus is on time, I can spare ten minutes in this kitchen, expelling the chill that has settled in my bones during the last month.

After a few minutes, the son and daughter leave, and Mrs Merryweather sits down next to me, nursing her own cup. She leans over, looking at my chest, where Larxene is snuggled in amongst spare shirts.

"So this is Larxene," she says affectionately, reaching out to brush her finger against Larxene's tiny hand. Larxene soon latches on, like she knows that somebody who was meant to be a mother is nearby. "Oh, she's gorgeous," Mrs Merryweather adds. I glance down; Larxene is mine and I love her, but I don't think she's gorgeous. Firstly, she's a baby, which is a huge disadvantage for anybody wanting to be aesthetically pleasing: moreover, even as babies go, she is not exactly a perfect specimen. So either Mrs Merryweather really likes babies, or she's just saying that to be nice.

"Thank you," I say on reflection. "She's two weeks and five days old."

"She's absolutely lovely. May I?" And Mrs Merryweather holds out her hands expectantly. With the same reluctance as I gave Larxene to the Doctor, I hand her over to her childminder, my fingers still lingering nearby even as Mrs Merryweather rocks Larxene soothingly against her ample bosom. Something inside me, an ancient maternal instinct, wants her back, even when I am just a few feet away from her.

"Wait until she starts crying," I warn the childminder as I heave the bag of baby things onto the kitchen table. "Here's everything you should need." And I go through everything as I take it out, until there is a little heap of nappies, milk and more on the table. Just as I'm about to put it all back in the bag, Mrs Merryweather's cute son pops his head in the door to say goodbye. He says goodbye to me too and I give him a little wave, flushing pink as soon as he's gone. At least, I think miserably, I'm playing my part well.

Mrs Merryweather is bouncing Larxene up and down in her arms, making the baby gurgle with delight. I didn't know Larxene was old enough to be shook about like that; I always tried to move her as little as possible in case I made her puke again. Now I want to bounce her on my lap, be the reason why she laughs. I cannot express how deep or now unnatural this longing for Larxene to be mine and only mine is, only that it both frightens me and grounds me. As long as I care about her, however inexplicably, I am her mother.

All too soon, it is time for me to leave. I try to say goodbye to Larxene, but my throat tightens and my eyes well up with tears. From the moment she was conceived I have never been parted from her, and suddenly I am so very afraid. I snatch her back for a moment, holding her very close and breathing in her loud baby smell, feeling the unexpected weight of her soft body pressing against my hands. She is warm and real and imine/i, and before I know it I am making plans to leave Mrs Merryweather behind and take Larxene with me to work, hidden right under my clothes and next to my skin. But she pats my back and says soothing things like "A lot of mothers struggle to say goodbye the first time" and "Don't worry, I'll take good care of her," and "You'll be reunited before you know it", and finally I am able to place Larxene back into her practised hands. I go to get my wash bag, but she says I can leave it with her, without even questioning why I should have a plastic sink and a towel with me.

So I catch my bus back out onto the industrial estate, am issued a new sign-in card, and take my familiar place in amongst the dead people I work with, ready to spend the next eight hours of my day packing biscuits. Why are they dead people? Because if you spent fifty six hours a week packing biscuits you would be dead pretty quickly too.

In fact, they are so dead that nobody says a single thing to me until lunch time, when I am accosted by a man I affectionately refer to as "my worst fucking nightmare". His name is Axel Hayes, he is sort of not really my boyfriend, and I loathe every second that I spend in his company.

"He-_ey_, Marluxia," he says, stretching the greeting out into about twenty too many syllables, "You're looking very slim today. Have you lost weight, babe?" And he laughs at his joke, because Axel's predominant personality trait is that he thinks he is hilarious.

"Fuck off, Axel," I say, trying to operate the coffee machine in peace. Axel says "Aw, don't be like that," and pinches my bottom. I want to slap him because it shoots barbs of agony right into me, but I can't reject his advances too much or he'll start sulking and might refuse to give me a lift into town. Because this is how our relationship works: I don't let Axel touch me inappropriately and say lewd things about my anatomy because I like him, I do it because otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay over at his house sometimes and sleep in a real bed, because otherwise even more treacherous lechers will touch me instead. And Axel may be a bastard, but at least he's clean and only twenty one.

"I missed you," Axel lies, running a hand through his bright red porcupine-hair. Axel is not stupid either; he could probably do well if he cared about anything other than football and porn and booze. "So, boy or girl?"

"Girl," I say without looking at my only friend (if he could even be called that). "I called her Larxene."

"I knew a girl called Larxene once," Axel says idly.

"Oh yeah?"

"Fucked her brains out."

I look at Axel. Axel looks at me. He grins, like fucking a girl's brains out is an achievement. I give him an expression of pure contempt, which makes him shuffle his feet and roll his eyes. Men aren't used to girls who treat them like this. It was one of the first things I noticed when I moved here and swapped my jeans out for skirts and learned how uncomfortable push up bras really are: men just expect me to find them hilarious, and if I don't, it's my fault. And I'm supposed to be flattered when they call out across the factory floor "nice tits!" and not, as I actually am, insulted beyond belief.

"Aw, come on, babe," he groans, getting the wrong idea, "Don't be like that. It was a long time ago."

"You mean it never happened." I collect my tea in its polystyrene cup and pour three satchets of sugar into it to make it drinkable. It is disgusting compared to Mrs Merryweather's proper pot-steeped tea, but at least it's warm, and staves off my hunger a little bit. So I sit down and let Axel move in too close to me, so close that his sharp hipbone jabs into my padded side.

"Still living in the car?" He asks after a moment, leaning back and putting his hands behind his neck so I can smell his ultra-deodorised armpit. I nod, made irritable by the fact that he says this with an amused tone in his voice, like it's funny that I can't afford to rent even the cheapest of bedsits. "Pity, huh. And here I thought Traverse Town was cheap as shit."

Now I want to punch him, but I play it nice and even give him a kiss when he complains that our reunion wasn't affectionate enough, so after work he drives me to Mrs Merryweather's house so I can pick up Larxene. Even though I already associate her with sleepless nights and a lot of milky vomit, my mood lightens when she is back in my arms. I thank Mrs Merryweather and pay her her four hundred munny as Axel laughs and says "Marluxia, you don't earn that in a day," which makes me flush hotly; then I climb into his car, which isn't much better than mine, and we go back to his flat.

I'm sure that the only reason Axel shows any interest in me is because he's desperate, and no real girl would touch him with a barge pole. It's certainly not for my good looks, charming personality or sexual prowess, because I haven't got any. Axel isn't ugly, but his entire appearance just reeks of absolute arsehole, from the crusty leather trenchcoat right down to the clown tears he paints on his face for "irony". And he is a bastard who thinks he's better than he really is.

"So," he says once we arrive, clearing empty beer cans off the table and emptying the ash tray into the bin. "Now that your brat's not in the way any more, how about we get a bit more physical tonight?"

"Are you kidding me?" I scoff. "I'm still sore." He rolls his eyes again like I am pathetic for not recovering quickly enough to sate his endless desire for sex. Then he lights up and I want to tell him to stop because the last thing I want is Larxene second-hand smoking, but if I do he'll just tell me to go home.

"You know, I could get any bitch I like," Axel says after a long pause, switching on his old telly and changing channels until he finds a football related programme. "I don't have to bother with someone as easy as you. I just feel sorry for you."

Easy! I have never slept with Axel despite his crude advances, and he calls me easy. He also calls me a prude and an uptight bitch a lot, and apparently this blatant contradiction doesn't bother him in the slightest, let alone the fact that he is far, far more willing to sleep with anyone and everyone than I am. But as usual, I let it slide.

"Yeah, right," I say instead, because an insult is almost a fair substitute, "You couldn't even get a whore to sleep with you."

"Evidently not," Axel says, giving my body a critical one-over. I shiver, disliking the way he looks at me. I don't want him to find this characature of femininity attractive. Then when he finishes his fag he leans over and touches my breast and says "I'll be gentle," in a tone that I think he thinks is sexy. I shake my head.

"You'll fucking rip me open again," I mutter back, a threat which is gruesome enough to keep him away from my groin. I can't deny any of his other advances, though, his wandering hands and hungry kisses that don't always quite catch my mouth. His breath carries the stench of smoke, and it is only while he tongues me that I feel a sudden pang of longing for a cigarette. I quit as soon as I realised I was pregnant, and after a few months the cravings subsided, but in this instant I want to fill my lungs with nicotine and tar, and shed just for a brief moment the stress of existence. But I know that I can't afford the habit, and my lifestyle choices are still going to affect Larxene even now that she has left my womb, so I force myself to let Axel's clingy breath be enough.

He presses needily against me, his skinny limbs catching at my fat, mouth grinning but eyes hungering for more. I set Larxene down on the coffee table, in amongst the porn and dirty plates and crisp packets, thinking about how she is still going to be trapped in this vicious circle at the bottom of society, how she's going to rebel and smoke and drink and hate everybody just like me, and it makes me so suddenly sad to know that my daughter's innocence is just a temporary buffer from the shit of the world that tears drip down my face while Axel kisses me and caresses me, oblivious.

He lets me sleep in his bed tonight, looping one casual arm around my neck. He smokes in bed too, his "night time fag", and in the light of his bedside lamp we watch the smoke curl in the air and bump into the ceiling in a thoughtful silence. Then Axel says "You'd better not make me change her fucking nappy in the middle of the night" and I promise not to and, in fact, he sleeps soundly on every single time Larxene cries. In the morning, we drink bitter coffee and make toast for breakfast, then Axel holds Larxene while I have a shower, joking once I'm out that I'm turning him into a "fucking domestic". I scoff at him. If he was a domestic, then he'd have at least woken up when Larxene needed feeding during the night. "How many times did she wake you up?" he asks. I tell him angrily. He doesn't believe me.

Then he drives me to Mrs Merryweather's house and I want to stay for a cup of tea but he hasn't left enough time, cutting his schedule so short that we only just get to work on the hour. I spend a few days at his house before he decides that he's "busy", which actually means he just wants to masturbate over the pay-per-view channels, then it's back to the car. The weekend is a blessing: I spend every spare second asleep. After a few weeks my tax credits come through, and I stop raiding Axel's fridge every time I stay over. Larxene grows. I shrink. Axel begins to pester me for sex even more. Week after week I tell him that I'm still sore, which I am, but he doesn't believe me until I fabricate a horrible lie about the type of tear that needs sixty stitches.

And I get better at pretending that at night when I am alone Larxene and I don't cry together, and that when she's sick I don't panic with the thought that it's my fault because I can't give her what she needs, and that it doesn't hurt me deep down inside that she likes Mrs Merryweather better than me. And I struggle on and on and on, saving up pennies for a roof over my head, pretending that I love Axel while he pretends that he loves me, dreaming every night of the careless abandon of my old life, the life that I hated, and that I miss.


	3. 03

I am standing in a dim, cigarette-smelling corridor, looking at a lopsided door with peeling paint and a plastic sign nailed on that says "4E". In my hand is a set of keys. Larxene, strapped as usual to my chest, gurgles.

"Me too," I say. I unlock the door and walk into the tiny room behind the door. "Home," I say.

The room doesn't look much like a home. It looks more like part of a crack house, or a brothel. The carpet has a larger area of stains on it than its original colour, which may have been beige. The kitchen area, just a few feet of worktop, a microwave and a rusty pair of gas rings, is caked with a layer of grease visible from across the room. The entire room has a musky odour about it: so the first thing I do is open the windows, wide, to let a fresh breeze roll in while I unpack.

Outside, still in the corridor, is Axel and nine large cardboard boxes.

"You can go now, Axel," I tell him, picking up the first box, the one with the bedding in it (and underneath, my boy clothes, which I'm still hoping to wear again one day), and carrying it in. He nods, saying "See you at work," and disappearing back to his car. I couldn't even get my car, sunk in the dust of the warehouse and rusting inside from the moisture and lack of use, to start. So it's still there, and there it will remain until the warehouse collapses in on itself.

It is September, and I spent all summer boiling in my long sleeves and high necked tops and tights, too afraid of showing more than the absolute minimum of my body to strip off. Axel teased me about this constantly, saying that I was an uptight bitch and whatever other tired insults his limited vocabulary could conjure up, even when I showed him my birthmarks, the ones which cover almost my entire body and make me look like a marble cake. Because no, my genetics were not content with making me a hermaphrodite, they also decided that I needed two-toned skin. I think the doctors who inspected me had a name for this condition, but I always ignored them out of spite because before I went into their offices I was a normal boy, and after I came out I was a freak. And then I was moved somewhere, and moved somewhere again, and my medical records got lost in the system and by the time I got my very last placement, I don't even think my clueless foster family even knew I was intersex.

Now the air outside is restless and misty drops of rain are beginning to splatter the windowsill. I ignore them for as long as I dare, but I give in eventually when I begin to shiver. I unload the boxes one by one, carefully allocating new homes for each item. Larxene's things get an entire drawer to themselves. I keep reshuffling things until I feel satisfied that this is a home well organised, then I make the bed, finishing just as Larxene starts crying again. I take out her bottle, fill it with milk, and plug her in. Larxene's been sick a lot since she was born, and while I promised the doctors that I was doing all I could to protect her from infection I'm sure her illnesses were something to do with the fact that I was washing her bottle up in the sink of the public toilets. I did all my washing up there: I had no other options. Once, the inspection man caught me doing it, but I think he was so surprised to see a hobo scrubbing plates that he just let me finish. But now I have a microwave! I can even buy the cheaper milk and sterilise it at home.

I close my eyes, drinking in this small success. By tightening my budget, leeching off Axel as much as humanly possible, and convincing Mrs Merryweather by way of a prolonged charm offensive to give me a discount so I was not paying her more than I myself was being paid, I managed to save enough money to afford a few months' rent of the cheapest bedsits in town. I'm still going to have to watch my expenditure if I don't want to be kicked out, but I try not to think about that right now, focusing on the positives. I can cook my own food now; I have a fridge, albeit a tiny one with no freezer compartment, so I won't have to throw away as much spoilt food; the lamplight throws all of the darkness in the room into the corners; the bathroom is just as the end of the corridor and not a fifteen-minute bus ride into town; from now on I will be warm and clean and sleep with my legs stretched out. Larxene and I will be able to play together.

Mrs Merryweather, who knows a lot more about babies than I do, keeps me updated on Larxene's daily activities whenever I have time to stop for a cup of her delicious tea. I've been telling her lies about the limitations of where we were living and how much time I spend with her (it's true that the answer is a lot, but I don't tell her that most of the time I am asleep), but I think she knows that I haven't really been paying attention to her over and above her basic requirements. But now I have a whole floor for the two of us to roll safely about on.

"Things are going to be better now," I say to my four month old baby. "You're not going to get sick any more, and we've got this _whole_ bed to sleep on." I stretch my limbs out dramatically. "No more rats. No more dirt and rusty metal."

Somebody clatters into the next room over, and a moment later loud music starts pounding at the walls. I tilt my head up. Larxene, on my chest, reaches up and pats my chin, then begins to cry miserably at the sudden booming noise.

"Less peaceful," I say, sitting up, "But cleaner. And warmer."

The man next door is very fat, and very drunk. He has a goatee, or at least, he had a goatee once; but stubble has grown around it, giving him half a beard. Which is worse than a full beard or no beard at all. I ask him to turn the music down, and he yells "What?" at me. I ask him again, louder. He tells me to piss off. I point to Larxene, who is currently doing a very good impression of an ambulance.

"I have a baby," I say. "You're disturbing her."

The very drunk man looks at Larxene, then leers at me with perverted eyes. My skin prickles and my temper rises. He says; "You some kinda whore or what?" And I want to slap him, but that will probably get me beaten half to death. So I just look him right in the eye and say; "I want you to turn the music down. You're upsetting my daughter."

"You know what else upsets yer daughter?" The man slurs. He begins to gyrate, saying things like "oh, _yeah_" and "baby, baby". I want to vomit at this disgusting display; instead, I march into his tiny room, and unplug his stereo. The thing itself is fairly small: it's the enormous speakers on each side that were making such a noise.

"Just go the fuck to bed," I say. "You're pissed out of your mind."

The man looks at me, half like he's totally dumbfounded at my courage, and half like what I am doing is turning him on. He says: "You wanna go to bed with me?"

"Not in my worst nightmares," I snap back, trying to leave. His gargantuan, beer-swollen body blocks my path. "Get out of the way."

He says; "Yer a pretty lady," even though nothing could be further from the truth. "I could give you a pretty son to go with yer daughter." I stand corrected: this, actually, is further from the truth. Any offspring of this hideous creature would be so ugly people would wonder if it was human at all. But he still won't let me out, no matter how sourly I rebuke him.

So, with Larxene cradled in the crook of my left arm, I pick the unplugged stereo up, and I throw it at his face.

I am not, and never have been, female. And even not eating enough and having a baby and working all day in a factory packing biscuits haven't totally diminished my strength or my aim. So the stereo hits him right on the nose, makes him reel backwards, clutching at his face, swearing. This makes Larxene start crying again.

"Don't fucking mess with me," I say, pushing him aside. "And don't fucking play your music so loud." I slam the door on him and go back to my room. Peace and quiet again. Until people start coming and going, music playing in other rooms on other floors, too close to be inaudible but too far to locate the source.

"But it's cleaner," I say to Larxene as she grasps my fingers, tugs at my sleeve in wonder, "And it's warmer."

I glance at my watch. It's about seven o'clock. Larxene and I are both tired. So I change into my pyjamas, give Larxene a bath in the sink, and we curl up together to sleep, my legs stretched right out to the end of the bed. The man next door has probably passed out, because I don't hear any more loud music for the rest of the night.

We nap until eleven, when Larxene's nappy needs changing. After that she is wide awake and more interested in touching my face than settling down. So I put her down on the bed and let her play with my mouth while I make up a list of all the things I am going to buy now that I have a home of my own. A saucepan and a frying pan, for example. A kettle. A play blanket and other toys for Larxene. Slippers. And maybe, if I save up enough money, some plants for the windowsill.

I was first fostered when I was six years old, to a very nice, well-to-do family with three adult children and very specific ideas as to how children should be disciplined. This apparently made them Experienced, but the problem was that their children were just like them: well behaved, respectful, and a far cry from anybody like me. I misbehaved constantly. I hated everybody. I broke things and still wet the bed and hid in cupboards when I was angry. The placement didn't last long: one day I peed on their brand new television, and they gave me back. The next family couldn't cope with me either, because although I was beginning to grow out of my peeing-on-things stage, I suddenly suffered from an acute crisis of gender, and apparently stealing my foster sister's clothes - including her underwear - was a step too far. By the time I was eleven I had lost count of the number of placements I'd been through. I was also friendless, miserable, and starting secondary school hardly even able to read. So when my social worker, my fifth social worker, told me that a man who had visited a few times before wanted to foster me, I resigned myself to more proof that what "part of a family" really meant to me was "an outsider".

At this point, I was halfway through puberty and doubly confused as to whether I was supposed to be a boy or a girl. My last placement had ended because one of the girls in the family had let out that I was intersex to a few of her friends, and in two days the entire school knew. Although the insults I received - mostly from boys I had never even spoken to - were varied and imaginative, their favourite one was "go fuck yourself". They didn't know that I was already too afraid to masturbate, in case I got myself pregnant (as it turns out, it makes no difference). Sometimes they treated me like a boy with a pussy, sometimes like a girl with a cock, whatever satisfied their whims at the time. And the most humiliating part of it was that my foster parents did nothing. They told me that everyone had to deal with bullying. My foster father even told me a pathetic story about how he was teased as a boy because he had an embarrassing haircut. I distinctly remember screaming at him that, unlike haircuts, vaginas do not grow out after a few months. I was stuck like this. And the whole school was putting me through hell for it.

At the end of the week, I tried to run away, but I only got as far as the local park, and after a few hours in the pouring rain with nothing but a clean change of underwear, my toothbrush and a ham sandwich, I crawled home again. My foster parents were angry. They did not understand my pain and isolation and crippling self-loathing. So I went back to the children's home with all the other fuck ups, even more broken and alone than before.

My latest foster family, the ones who managed to keep me for the longest, had two biological children, four adopted children, and had fostered so many others that I soon lost count of the smiling people in the photographs on the mantelpiece. They also had a dog. When I moved in with the Wise family, I was the youngest of three (and occasionally four; one of them - the biological son - was at the local university, and came and went with seemingly random abandon) children at home, which was a big detached building on the outskirts of town. But I didn't really care about the house, because backing onto it was an enormous and well-kept garden. Because I arrived during the summer holidays, this was where I spent most of my time. Most afternoons, Mr Wise would join me, and after a while he convinced me to help him out with his gardening projects. It was the first thing I had ever done that I had a natural talent for. My Wise often joked that the plants "liked" me because I was so good at cultivating them. One day he came home with a book of common garden plants, which he gave to me, and every page of which I dutifully memorised (I can still recall most of it now). Eventually he even let me uproot an entire flowerbed to do with it as I saw fit, and with a modest budget, several trips to the local plant nursery and hours upon hours of tireless work I created something beautiful, something that was also _mine_.

I miss plants. The weeds and brambles in the abandoned lot where the warehouse stood didn't count. As Larxene experimentally puts her hand in my mouth, I move to the next line on my list and write "plants". Larxene pulls at my tongue, laughing as I wriggle it out of her grasp. She grabs again, more tightly, enthralled, especially when I start making "blarb blarb" sort of noises at her. We keep playing this game until she gets bored; then we sleep again until morning when the drunk man from last night calls around to say that I broke his stereo and also his nose. Knowing what it is really like to have a broken nose, I tell him that he is stupid; this probably isn't the best course of action because his Neanderthal face crumples into something furious and he looks ready to hit me. Luckily, however, a heavily made-up woman about his age turns up and begins fussing over him, which soon distracts him from me. As they disappear back into his room she turns to me and says; "Sorry, hun, you know how they are." I don't know if she's referring to drunk bastards or just men in general.

At work, Axel tells me that I left a carton of baby milk in his car and it made it stink, even though baby milk hardly even smells of anything. But for some reason, he is really angry about this, because he sulks all day. Axel is normally pretty jokey, brushing things off as a joke even when I wish he wouldn't. But sometimes really inane, stupid things just set him off. As his sort-of-but-not-really girlfriend, I wonder if I should try to placate him, but I can't be bothered.

"I don't know why you put up with him," one of the girls says as we pack biscuits together. I shrug. Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if it's time to shake him off. I've got my own home now: it's not like I need him any more. So, in an act of spiteful benevolence, I say flippantly: "He's good in bed." This makes the girl titter, but she also glances at Axel with a lot more notice than she normally does.

"If you're not careful, you'll have another bastard kid."

"I'm not making that mistake again,"I I scoff. But it sets me thinking about a terrifying truth I've been ignoring since Larxene was born, too busy to plan ahead for the future: if my body impregnated itself once, then it is only a matter of time before it does it again.


	4. 04

Axel is in a foul mood for the rest of the week, and from then on he's never satisfied by anything I do. We argue almost constantly. Sex is a prominent subject in these arguments: "I know you're fucking alright now, you uptight bitch," he says when I explain that I am still delicate; "Nobody takes that fucking long to recover from childbirth even when they have fifty stitches or whatever." Soon enough he doesn't even believe the part about the stitches. Soon I end up with half a mind to let him undress me, because God knows he's a shitty enough boyfriend to deserve finding out that his "bird" has a cock.

I eventually end up talking to Mrs Merryweather about this (well, a somewhat censored version of the story). I tell her that Axel is being grouchy and petty because I don't always want to do the exact same thing that he does. She gives me a hot cup of tea and asks me how serious the relationship is. I shrug and say that most of the time I can't stand Axel either (this is a lie: I can never stand Axel), then she tells me all about how important communication is in a partnership, and how each party has to treat the other person as an equal. I leave for work with a view to breaking up with him then and there. He can have that other girl who thinks he's a good lay. They'd be good for each other: obviously neither of them care about anything other than sex. They could fuck all day and all night, and then Axel would leave me alone.

But then Axel isn't in at work that day and nobody knows what happened to him, so instead of taking the bus from the centre of town out to my bedsit at six o'clock I walk straight to his flat. The evening air is cool and refreshing on my face, the ache in my legs distracting me from the ache between my legs. I'm passing through the tail end of the rush hour, and smart businessmen with briefcases and smart businesswomen with crippling heels march past me as though I'm invisible. As I get out of the First District I spot a few homeless people hunched up against the brickwork of the houses. Maybe I should tell one of them about the car in the warehouse, so at least they can protect themselves from the worst of the elements, but I want the security of knowing it's there even if I get evicted from my room.

The first thing I do when Axel opens the door to me is cough. Smoke is pooling in a thick aura around him, and somehow I don't think it's from cigarettes.

"You took a day off sick just to get high," I say disbelievingly. Axel laughs loudly, ushering me in before I have a chance to protest.

"I'm not high," he snorts. "Just drunk." And he wobbles over to the coffee table where amongst the usual detritus there are three bottles of vodka. Mostly empty bottles of vodka.

"You're disgusting," I say as he takes a swig from one of them and plops down onto the sofa. "Here I am working my fucking arse off trying to keep a roof over my head and you take days off of work just to get pissed off your face."

"Oh, quit complaining," says Axel, "You've only got yourself to blame." And he glances down at my crotch, adding playfully; "whore".

"I could have been raped," I mutter. If only he knew. But he just laughs at me. I think to myself: what if I actually had been raped? Axel won't even entertain the possibility. It's funny to him. God, I hate him.

"Nobody would rape you," he says, turning on the television. "You don't even look like a girl."

I sit down next to him. He's definitely had cannabis at some point today. I wonder what kind of effect that would have on Larxene, and almost subconsciously tuck her face behind my jacket. I'd get up and leave immediately, but my legs need a break and his sofa is comfortable if nothing else. He cracks me open a beer, which I sip at hesitantly. I know I'm not good at being drunk from past experience, back when Larxene was my best friend and not my daughter. At first, she took me along to parties but half the time I would end up sobbing in a corner somewhere, or worse still in a cupboard. Once I even tried to climb into the fridge: from then on we'd go up to the local woods and get pissed in amongst the beeches, brambles and litter, running for our lives whenever the plods came looking for the source of all the screaming.

We drink together in silence for a while. Then Axel says with remarkable clarity for the number of units of alcohol he's ingested; "Do you ever get sick of all this bullshit?"

"I never stop being sick of it," I say, thinking he means work and life and money and lack thereof. But apparently he wasn't, because he leans on me suddenly and says; "We should fuck."

"No," I say, wriggling away, "We shouldn't." When he doesn't desist, I point to my sleeping baby. "Come on, Axel, don't do this in front of Larxene."

So he wrestles Larxene right out of my unsuspecting arms and takes her to the kitchen, swaying on the way, closing the door behind him before I even have a chance to leap up and grab her back. "There," he says; "We're all alone now." And he sits down next to me on the lumpy leather couch, so close the alcohol on his breath pours into my nostrils. He leans in to kiss me, reeking; I shy away. I don't want to kiss him any more.

"Come on," he says, lustily, like he's forgotten that he thinks I look like cheap shit with my charity shop clothes, two-inch-long mousy roots and bags under my gaudy make up, touching my leg. I instinctively press my knees together. I might be stronger than him. I could probably fight him off. But he's made escape difficult: if I try to run for Larxene, he'll just catch me on the way out. So I just push at him, whining that I'm still hurting and I don't want to and he's drunk and he doesn't know what he's doing. But he just grabs my arms and pushes me back down. Suddenly, I am very afraid of Axel, and suddenly, he is very angry.

"Stop being such an ungrateful bitch!" he yells, the vodka slurring his words, "You're such a fucking cocktease, you little bitch,"

"Get off," I try to begin, but Axel doesn't listen, forcing my spine to curve in painful ways against the disintegrating stuffing and cracked surface of the sofa's arm.

"I know you're no stranger to sex, you slut," he snaps, and that's it, that's fucking it: I put up with Axel because he's my only friend, just like I put up with Larxene's charades because _she_ was my only friend, but this is too fucking far. My elbow connects with his stomach, making him groan, and as he staggers away I rush for the kitchen, slamming the door closed and pushing the table up against it before he can follow me. Luckily, Larxene has not rolled off the kitchen table. If she had, I'd have murdered Axel.

I stop suddenly, looking at Larxene, this ugly little creature that exploded out of my uterus one day and has controlled every second of my life ever since, wondering when I became so protective of her. I pick her up with an unexpected tenderness. "Come on, you," I say, stroking her silky hair, "Let's get out of this shithole."

However, there is no escape from the kitchen, unless I want to fall to my untimely death on concrete four storeys below. So take the largest kitchen knife I can find out of the drawer and push the table away. "I'm going home now," I say to a dumbfounded Axel on the other side, "Don't ever fucking talk to me again, okay?"

"Woah, Jesus, Marluxia," Axel says when he sees me brandishing the knife. I hope he's too drunk to notice how much I'm shaking. "Shit, Jesus, there's no need for that." I do not actually want to stab Axel, if only because I don't want to go to prison. So I head for the door, still pointing the knife at him.

"Just go to bed," I say as I turn the key in the lock. "You're drunk off your face, Axel, just go to bed." But Axel is too preoccupied by the fact that his girlfriend is threatening him with a knife.

"Jesus," he says. Axel is not religious in the slightest, like any of us rejects could believe in God, but he says Jesus a lot. I inch backwards out of the door, then toss the knife on the floor at the last minute, slam the door, and run. As I go I hear Axel yell "You just fucking used me for my money, you fucking-!"

Yes. Yes, I did. I catch the last bus home and microwave something or other for supper, then use the packaging for a game of peek-a-boo with Larxene. Now you see me… now you don't! Now you see me… now you don't! And it distracts me from the loneliness and the fear, pretending that I am an adult, a responsible mother capable of raising a healthy, happy daughter. But I'm still a kid. I still make a nest of bedding in the very corner of the room when it's time to sleep, I still bite my fingers and twist my knuckles while Larxene burbles above the sounds of doors slamming elsewhere in the building.

I stay in Traverse Town until November, sticking it out because the rates are cheap and I have the security of a job, but Axel, fucking petty Axel, starts spreading rumours about me that remind me all too badly of my school days, and eventually I can't even stand the other people in the factory looking at me, no matter how disinterested their stares, and I'm pulling my hair out in clumps, and one day one of the lecherous old men slaps my arse and I run away from work right that second, go back to my car where families of mice and trails of ants are feeding at the rotten food in the boot, and sob and sob until I collect enough strength to get the bus to Mrs Merryweather's house, give her the very last three hundred munny and take Larxene away. She gives me a few of Larxene's favourite toys, out of the kindness of her heart (or maybe because my eyes are still red). One of them is a yellow plastic rattle, which Larxene shakes with delight as I pack up our things, oblivious to the fact that her world is about to be totally disrupted, because I can't cope.

* * *

I need to stop trying to end every section with some erudite comment about how awful Marluxia's life is. Also, the knife scene was so much better the first time I wrote it.


	5. 05

Hollow Bastion looks a lot like its name suggests. According to the billboards I pass on the way into town, official reconstruction efforts are currently underway, but I see no evidence of this until I climb off the bus in the high street to the sight of an enormous old castle covered in scaffolding and cranes. I can't help it catching my breath.

"Would you look at that," I say to Larxene, who isn't interested in the slightest. I assume that this is the eponymous Bastion. It's certainly hollow: in several places, I can see right through it to the fields and forests beyond. "We could live there. I bet they wouldn't even notice." But I don't want to share my home with pigeons and rats again. So I force myself to look away, glancing over the shop fronts before setting off down the road, occasionally glancing at my map for directions to my new flat. It's quite a bit more expensive than the bedsit in Traverse Town, but all of the jobs I have interviews for pay more money too, so I'm halfway certain at least that I can cover the costs. Unless, of course, childcare turns out to be more expensive here. But I try not to think about that.

Actually, I don't want to get a job at all. The month I spent at home with Larxene was the best once since I ran away. Larxene and I played for hours every day, and I got some books out of the library and read them while she slept on my belly. I almost became nocturnal, because the block was always quieter during the day. Nobody could hurt me; I was blissfully alone. But now it is almost December and I hardly have enough money for Larxene's baby milk, let alone rent and food.

I pull my coat more tightly around us. Larxene chews on my scarf. There are a lot of boarded up shops, but the place still seems to be alive, people bustling from one store to another, chatting in the street as they pass each other by. But I don't have to go far before I start noticing homeless people huddled in blankets, puffing steam into the cold air. This town looks like it's been through hell.

Eventually I get to my new flat. I have my own toilet now, but the showers are still at the end of the corridor; other than that it's more or less the same as my own place.

I drop my rucksack on the bed, wheezing, and heave my suitcases up beside it. Then I get myself a drink, take a bit of a rest, tidy up Larxene, and get back onto the bus. Hollow Bastion is two hours away from Traverse Town, and anything I can't get from one town to the other today, I have to throw away. Eventually, at eleven o'clock, I catch the very last bus, yawning hugely as I settle down into the uncomfortable seat with two cardboard boxes on my lap and one on the floor. The only other people on the bus are two half-drunk teenagers chatting about their girlfriends, and the bus driver is the same one who conducted my first journey this morning.

"Moving?" he asked as I climbed on, struggling to balance three boxes and a baby in my arms. I nodded and asked for a single. He just smiled and let me climb on without paying again. "If a ticket inspector comes on, I'll vouch for you," he said, sipping coffee. "But I seriously doubt that's gonna happen."

It's funny how when you've hit rock bottom the spontaneous benevolence of complete strangers can make your day.

Three days later I am being trained to unpack stock in the storeroom of a supermarket. How difficult can it be, I hear you ask? But when you didn't finish school, everyone assumes that you are so stupid that speaking to you at anything faster than a snail's pace will genuinely confuse you. So I'm trained without being paid for two days before they let me sort deliveries on my own. It's dull work, but not as dull as packing biscuits in a factory. It's also within walking distance of my new room, so I don't need to worry about bus fares.

Wearing my proper clothes again and not bothering to hide my deep voice, I discover something very interesting: people, random people who I have never met, start congratulating me when they see me out and about with my baby. Because I only work half days on Wednesdays (although I also do Saturday mornings to make up for it), I get into the habit of taking Larxene out for walks around the town, as beautiful and scarred as it is, often circling the Bastion in all its broken glory. One week, it snows, and the castle is topped with a sprinkle of white that settles where it shouldn't, blowing into windows and covering floors. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. I start dreaming of owning one of the flats above the shops facing the Bastion, so I could open my curtains in the morning and there it would be. I think, perhaps, that it captivates me because it is so broken and yet still so beautiful and majestic.

I also dip my feet a little deeper into the fiction side of the library. This is where I meet the first person who considers teenage fatherhood an achievement. She is a librarian, I don't know her name, and she coos over Larxene as soon as I arrive in from the cold, melting at the sight of her rabbit onesie-jacket with the ears (I found it in a charity shop and the lady gave it to me for ten munny because it had a hole in the sleeve). Apparently I am "so brave" for taking responsibility for my daughter. I wish that the people who called me a slut and a whore when I was dressing like a girl agreed with her. Soon joining her are the baker who asks if I'm her big brother then gasps in surprise and congratulates me when I correct her, and the guy at work, my age, who told me that I was "well alright" for taking up parental responsibilities, before adding something about her mother that involved the word "bitch".

One Wednesday afternoon, when it's too cold to take Larxene out for a walk and Christmas is looming on the horizon, I am inventing games for the pair of us to play while we are wrapped up in a blanket. It is amazing how imaginative I have become since Larxene was born. The game we are currently involved in is called "hide the octopus", where I hide a homemade toy octopus - to Larxene's shock and awe - before dramatically revealing it again, to her great delight. This literally makes her the happiest baby on earth. Sometimes I tuck the octopus under one bit of blanket, only to have it reappear somewhere completely different. This is mind blowing. Larxene's arms wiggle and her fingers grab clumsily for this magical teleporting octopus, oblivious to the fact that my hands are just passing it behind my back. I wish that I could be so easily pleased, that a bottle cap with bits of string stuck to it would amaze me for hours, but then again, with a baby, this is almost possible. Then when I get bored of hide the octopus I bounce her on over to the play blanket, a permament fixture of the floor, and sit her down to wonder at the hanging mobiles and crinkly animals. I sit with her, sometimes feeling her firm grip on my knee or toes, and read aloud more advice from the baby book I forgot to return to Traverse Town library.

"_At seven months_," I say seriously, "_Your baby may be able to support her weight if holding onto you or a table leg_. Can you do that, Larxene?" Larxene just gabbles meaninglessly at me. "_Your baby will be developing her fine motor skills, such as picking objects up between forefinger and thumb and tasting things with her mouth. These small actions help her to interact with her environment_. Well, you're certainly trying to put everything in your mouth." It's true. Larxene's main response to anything new is to attempt to put it into her mouth. I'm beginning to feed her solid foods now - although by "solid" the baby guides mean mashed up anything. Without a blender my options are pretty limited, but I've got Larxene eating milky rice and squashed banana and overripe avocado so far. This guide suggests adding a new food every week or so. This week I am going to poach some pears for us too (I picked up the recipe from one of those fliers they tuck into mumsy magazines - I don't buy the mags, but I do shake the recipes out when the till keeper isn't looking. The guide also talks about two-handled cups a lot, but I don't have the money for those right now. That particular area of Larxene's fine motor skills will have to wait.

Suddenly Larxene starts crying, even though nothing seems to be wrong. She hasn't wet herself or bumped her head and she can't be hungry again. But I pick her up anyway, saying things like "Shush, shush, there's no need to cry" and "Silly baby, silly baby". I say this a lot, because she likes the repetitiveness of my voice. Maybe she just wanted to be held, because she quiets down after a few minutes. Silly baby, silly baby.

I flip the page of my book over. It says, with a diagram of a lady on the telephone, that I mustn't be afraid to ask for help if I feel like I can't cope. This interests me. When I was living in Traverse Town, more or less, I just talked to Mrs Merryweather or took Larxene down to Doctor Kennedy if I was worried about something: now, however, I don't have anyone to talk to. My new childminder is a bitch who charges extra for Saturdays, and I don't even know where Hollow Bastion's local surgery is. Maybe I should find out.

I glance out of the window: it's snowing again, little sludgey flakes that probably won't settle.

"I should probably get you some warmer clothes," I say idly to Larxene. "And pay a bit extra to turn the heating up a few degrees…and my shoes have holes in them now. And I need more pads. And the ingredients to make those poached pears. And another spatula." I melted the last one accidentally.

I sigh. Pads are the most important thing, unless I want blood dribbling down the side of my leg (again). The rest will just have to wait until I've got the money.

Sooner or later, Larxene is crying again. Opening up her drawer I discover that I only have five nappies left. Ah. I leave her naked for a bit, because maybe then the nappies will last longer or something, and also because it'll apparently help to protect her against nappy rash. She's had it a few times already, because it took me a while to realise how thickly you really needed to spread on the cream. But even up on the bed it's too cold to go without a nappy for long (and I'm also worried that she'll pee on everything), so I bag her up again after a few minutes. Then we nap. When I wake up the snow is falling more thickly, and I'm hungry. I fry some sausages and boil some rice with peas mixed in (who needs to cook them separately? Not me. I've only got one saucepan, anyway). Deciding that maybe I can give Larxene pears next week, I pop a few of the peas out of their shells and mash them up with my fork, piling the mashed pea up onto Larxene's baby spoon (another charity shop find, twenty munny). At first she isn't interested, sitting like a tripod in amongst the swathes of bedding, but I convince her to try them in the end. At least, until she spits them out.

"You liked the avocado," I say huffily, scraping them off the bedsheet. I really need to get Larxene one of those bibs too, the ones that have a sort of bucket on the end that catches all that regurgitated baby food. "You like avocado but you don't like peas. What kind of a freak child are you?"

I smile to myself at this remark. I am privately hideously disfigured, blotchy and mismatched and hormonally confused. My lucky daughter likes avocado but she doesn't like peas.


	6. 06

I first meet Demyx at the supermarket, on another Wednesday afternoon. I've just paid for more nappies, a pack of rolls and eight sausages, and I happen to glance behind me to see a cute guy about my age grinning at the bemused cashier as she rings through load after loaf of cheap sliced bread.

"It's for the soup kitchen," he says, pulling handfuls of munny from the pockets of his worn, low slung jeans. "You don't even want to know how quickly hobos can get through bread." He counts out coins and gems as I stare, unnoticed, the bread still beeping past the scanner. "Two hundred munny ought to cover this, right? Cheers, Ma'am." Oblivious to the scowls of the cashier, the hands over a lump of loose change, stuffing the loaves into plastic bags as she counts it all out again.

Realising that I've been enraptured for a second by his soft cheeks and bright eyes, I flush heavily and try to make a beeline for the door: but as I'm turning he says in the same light voice: "Hey, you mind giving me a hand? I could do this in half the time with your help."

My guts curl quite suddenly as my mind descends into the gutter. I reply; "Sure," and reach over for a loaf, shoving it into another bag. For once I'm glad my hair's still so long, because this way it covers my red face.

"Hey!" The boy exclaims, looking at my chest. "Didn't notice the baby there! She's cute, isn't she? Is she yours?" He leans right over to say hello to Larxene, holding his finger out to be grabbed and babbling happily at her.

"Yeah, she's seven months old," I tell him, still working on the bread. "And her name's Larxene."

"Larxene!" The boy grins more widely, tipping his head forward so Larxene can grab onto his half-Mohawk hair. I notice each individual strand of brown-blonde hair; although the spiky strip down the middle is caked with gel to keep it standing up, the hair on the sides of his head look so soft and fluffy that I almost want to touch it. This idle thought makes me realise how much I miss people. This is weird, because I always shunned them, expended huge amounts of energy pushing them away. Now I am alone, and I want them back. "I'm Demyx," Halfhawk boy is cooing as Larxene chews on his hair. "What's your Dad's name, eh?"

"I'm Marluxia," I say. "Marluxia Braefern."

He glances up at me, all big turquoise eyes and perfect skin. And I am still putting bread in bags, even though he stopped ages ago.

"That's quite a name."

"Yeah, I know."

This makes Demyx grin again. Everything makes him grin. Finally he extracts himself from Larxene's firm grasp, tossing the bagged bread back into his trolley while he continues "I gotta run this up to Rising Falls now. You wanna come with? Larxene can have a ride in the trolley."

What can I say? He's adorable. I want to steal more seconds with him so that I can admire the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. And everything else.

"Sure, but she's kind of tied in." I gesture to Larxene's shirt-saddle, tucked up inside my jacket. "And she'd probably get cold if I took her out."

"You can ride in the trolley too," Demyx jokes as we make our way out of the shop. I think to myself, have I just picked up a cute guy? Or has he just picked up me? "You're new here, right?" He asks once we're back out in the cold, snowflakey air, noticing that my eyes have gravitated to the hollow bastion for which the town is named. "Just imagine what she was like before the attack."

"Attack?"

"Well, yeah, Hollow Bastion wasn't always all in pieces, was it?" Demyx's face suddenly becomes morose, and he shivers conspicuously. "I was still a kid when it happened, but I remember most of it. They blew up half the town. We had to camp out in the castle for a long time before they managed to salvage parts of the town."

"I hadn't heard about that," I admit, not sure what else I can say. Demyx shrugs understandingly; at the same time it's like he pushes all of those memories away, because his step becomes light again and the smile returns, if slowly, to his face.

"People don't like to talk about it." Then we walk in silence for a few minutes, turning off into the still-damaged parts of town, where he says "We haven't got much help from outside. Nobody wants to live here, do they, because they don't think it's safe. So we had to make do with what we could salvage from the wreckage, really." Then he rather unsubtly changes the subject. "Where are you from?"

"A lot of places," I say evasively. Honestly, I don't really feel like I'm from anywhere, I've moved around so much.

"Oh," says Demyx, nodding sagely. "You're one of those people. I wouldn't have chosen Hollow Bastion to set up shop, though. I guess the rent's cheap." The he turns another corner and announces proudly: "Here we are!"

The soup kitchen stands out primarily because it's the only shop on Rising Falls that isn't gutted and empty; it's also a hive of activity, so full inside that people are milling around in the snow, polystyrene cups in their hands. What strikes me is the huge variety of people in the front drive, from tramps to builders to businessmen, all chatting as they drink steaming portions of soup.

"Do you just serve anybody here?" I ask as Demyx yells "Coming through! Coming through! Delivery for one Missus Aqua Victoria Seymour!"

A youthful woman with shocking blue hair appears at the door.

"I told you not to use my full name, Demyx!" But she welcomes him in too, saying "Who's this? And who's _this_?" when she sees me and Larxene. Demyx introduces us, then briefly recounts his journey to the shop, paying particular attention to the part where Larxene chewed on his precious hair. I'm about to tell him that he didn't seem to mind in the slightest at the time, but this is the moment when Larxene lets out the ear-drum shattering scream that signifies that she wants to be fed. Except I thought I was going to be home ten minutes ago and didn't bring any milk with me. I desperately put my finger in her mouth, but that only placates her until she realises that it isn't producing any milk, whereupon she starts wailing again.

"Sorry," I say several times, feeling my face heat up again, this time from embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting to be out this long, I'll just-"

The worst thing about having a publically crying baby is feeling like a failure as a parent to provide for your child. Larxene is crying and she shouldn't be crying and I am wholly responsible for stopping her crying and I can't. "I'm sorry," I say again, stroking her hair and bouncing her in her coccoon of a carrier in an attempt to soothe her, but all to no avail. Then something amazing happens: a woman, tired and baggy with a baby of her own (blissfully asleep), rushes over to comfort Larxene, pulling a dummy out of her bag and wiping it on her sleeve before plugging her in.

"There you go, honey," she says to me, "That should keep her happy for a while." And she moves as if to leave, Aqua running a hand through her blue hair as she thanks the lady.

"But what about-?" I begin to ask. The lady just smiles, waving her hand as she says; "Keep it". This kindness surprises me. I am not used to kindness.

"I should still go," I tell Demyx. "If I don't feed Larxene soon she'll probably start breaking glasses."

Demyx laughs, at my joke. "Sure thing, Marlu… Marly. Come visit, okay? I live here right now, so you know where to find me." He hands me a polystyrene cup full of bright orange soup and ushers me back outside where more people are lingering. Then when I glance behind me on my way onto the pavement he looks right at me and winks.

At home, with Larxene fed and playing with her crinkly cat toy (one of Mrs Merryweather's donations), I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, feeling self conscious. My hair is long and ratty, the pink fading to white in places and my mousy roots several inches long. I poke at the bags under my eyes, pull off my unfashionable, too-small clothes.

"What am I going to do?" I ask Larxene, rubbing at my bare, blotchy arms. "He's so cute, and I'm so… me." As usual, Larxene's only answer is meaningless babble, since she's more interested in sitting on her cat than my teenage woes. "I know, I know," I say; "I haven't got a chance. He's probably not even gay." But he _did_ wink at me. And even if nothing becomes of this meeting, even if I never go back to the soup kitchen, the flutter in my chest grounds me somehow: I've just been Larxene's parent and benefector for so long that I've almost forgotten what it's like to be a sixteen year old. But at the same time, it fills me with such a strange, contradictory emptiness, one that hurts inside as much as my attraction to Demyx feels wonderful, because I've left behind my childhood now and I know that I can't ever go back.

I leave work on Saturday exactly as the shift bell rings, with a view to getting up to the soup kitchen and seeing Demyx again before I have to collect Larxene from the evil babysitter. But what actually happens is I get lost and end up having to backtrack to the high street then only having time to rush to the babysitter's house to get Larxene.

"She's almost started using words," the babysitter tells me as I collect my bag of things; "She said "ma" to me today. So listen out." This sounds like a nice thing to say, but the way she emphasises the words just makes her sound smug; it's no secret, after all, that her own children were prodigies from the day they popped out of her pristine womb. And sure enough, here comes the follow up: "Although my children reached that stage much earlier, of course." I wonder how people even hire her. Maybe it's because, like me, they can't afford any of the nice people.

I tell Larxene that it is time for an adventure and we are going to go on a hunt for a magical soup kitchen, but she prefers sucking on her new dummy to looking out for the blown-in row of shops with its one lively building on the end of the street. Just as I'm beginning to think I dreamt Demyx up, finally I spot the right intersection up ahead. I recognise some of the people outside, but Demyx isn't among them. So I elbow my way inside, using Larxene as an excuse to get out of the cold, and pick out Aqua Victoria Seymour among the people serving soup. I realise while I wait for a chance to talk to her that she's the one running this place: everyone knows her, everyone asks her for advice or assistance, everyone compliments her when the soup is delicious. She is so in demand, in fact, that I am served before I manage to go "Hi, where's Demyx?" and find myself directed to the back of the shop. Beyond the kitchen, it turns out, there is a whole corridor of rooms, not all of which have open doors. "His room's upstairs. He has a sign," says Aqua right before she's gone again into her throngs of people.

I pull my shoes off and add them to the pile at the bottom of the stairs then creep skywards. More corridors, and more rooms. Does Aqua also run a hostel service or something? What kind of a superwoman is she?

Demyx's room is easy to find: it's the one that has a huge and over-decorated piece of paper taped to the door that says "DEMYX". It makes me smile, and also makes me sad. I remember having a sign on my bedroom door, in all of those care homes I used to live in, signs that were vandalised and ripped down and replaced on a weekly basis. Eventually I gave up, the upshot of which was that I lived in a room labelled "Fannyboy" for three weeks before one of the social workers noticed and took the sign down.

Loud music is eminating from Demyx's room, so much so that I have to knock pretty loudly for him to hear me. The music stops and Demyx, guitar in his hands, opens the door.

"Oh, Marly! Hey there!"

"That's Marluxia," I correct. I don't like the nickname "Marly", even though everyone uses it anyway. It sounds like something you'd call a dog, and I have been compared to a dog too many times in my life to be okay with that. And just like everyone else, Demyx just laughs as he lets me in to his mess of a room, saying "I see you got souped up downstairs there." He's going to keep calling me Marly. I just know it.

I find myself sitting on Demyx's bed as he packs up his guitar. "I'm going to be in a band one day," he says dreamily as he turns off the aplifier. "I'm going to be famous, and half the munny I make I'll give back to Aqua. Hey, can I hold your baby?"

"What's her deal?" I ask, gladly handing Larxene over to reach for Demyx's heavily gelled hair again. She must like the taste, because the first thing she does to the lock that she grabs is put it in her mouth. "She's feeding half of Hollow Bastion down there."

"She's not from around here," Demyx says thoughtuflly. Every few words are interrupted with an "oochy goochy goo" directed at Larxene. She seems to enjoy the attention. "She went to university, I think, but then one day she decided that she wanted to do something more with her life. So she started the soup kitchen with the money she inherited from her parents. I think she could do anything if she put her mind to it, really. She's just one of those kinds of people." Demyx sighs, extracting Larxene from his hair. "I'm kind of jealous, actually. I don't know how she does it."

I almost ask about Demyx's past, too, but then I think about his sudden sadness when he talked about the mysterious "attack", and the probability that he will ask about my history, which I'm not ready to divulge yet - so I curb my curiosity, instead simply agreeing with him. We fall silent - at least, as silent as any room with Larxene in it can be. Below us I can still hear the hustle and bustle of the soup kitchen.

"So what do you do?" I ask eventually. Demyx glances at me.

"Schoolwork, mostly. But I go out busking for Aqua at the weekends sometimes. Odd jobs. I'm a jack of all trades, me. What about you?"

I had forgotten about school. They seem like such a far-off dream now, memories of yawning in the back of classrooms when I even bothered to turn up at all. The only times I've ever thought about school since have been when trying to add up grocery prices in my head, or attempting (and failing) to nagivate the minefield that is bank accounts. Why didn't they teach us anything useful at school? Maths was all about triangles and equations named after Greeks, rather than working out whether or not fifty munny is going to cover the food you need for the weekend (hint: it doesn't). No English teacher ever taught me how to write a job application or successfully navigate the minefield that is interviews.

"I work in the supermarket," I say. "Exciting, I know."

Demyx flops down on the bed with Larxene, so she can drag herself across his chest and play with his nose. "Hey, you got any toys in that bag of yours? Anything to stop Larxene pulling my face off."

I hand over the crinkly cat, Larxene's favourite toy in the whole world this month. Sure enough, it distracts her from Demyx long enough for him to pick her up and plonk her on the bed between us. "She's still cute, though," he says. "Just like her Dad." I almost think that this is a come on, ialmost/i, but Demyx makes this remark so off-handedly that tendrils of doubt creep into my head. It sounds like something he'd say to anyone.

So I just say "thanks" in a sardonic voice. Demyx laughs at me, but he doesn't even glance my way, so I really do think he just meant it lightly. Besides, I'm not even cute any more. I used to be when I was well fed and slept for nine hours a day, but that's as distant a dream as school.

"So how old are you?" Demyx asks, playing with Larxene and tha cat. He's blowing her mind by hiding it under his duvet and then squeezing it so she can hear the scrunchy sound but can't see the cat. I smile at this display, storing the trick in the back of my mind to try at home.

"Sixteen," I reply. This time, Demyx glances up at me in surprise, like he expected me to be older. "Yeah, yeah, I know. What about you?"

He goes back to amazing Larxene. "Year older," he says; "And I haven't even got laid yet."

"It's not all it's cut out to be," I lie. How could I know? But from what other people have said to me over the years, I think it's probably overrated. Especially compared to porn.

"Are you still with her?" Demyx asks. He stops hiding the cat, instead holding its back with his two forefingers either side of its neck, so he can make its head wiggle in a funny display of impromptu puppetry. "Meow, meow!" He coos. "I'm Demyx the cat, and I'm going to eat you!" He bounces the cat towards Larxene and away from her again, tantalisingly dancing it just out of her reach.

"We weren't ever together." Of course this is fabricated. I've never even looked at a girl and wondered what she might be like in bed. Once when I was little I made a huge deal about having a crush on the biggest tomboy in the school, but that was mostly because she acted just like a boy anyway, and I wanted just to fit in. "It was a one night thing."

"Oh," says Demyx. And then: "Next time, use condoms."

"I don't think that will be a problem," I say enigmatically. What I really mean is that condoms wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference anyway, but I'd like Demyx to take it to mean that "next time" I have sex I thoroughly expect it to be with someone I can't impregnate. But he just laughs in exactly the same way, so I don't even know if he read between the lines at all. Oh, well. I have plenty of time left to work out whether this guy is elegible or not.

I lie down on the bed too, thinking about time. The familiar pit of dread opens up again in my stomach when I think about how Larxene came to be and how it's going to happen again one day. I'll have to move to a new town, pretend to be a girl again…when is it going to end? How many children am I going to end up with? Larxene was one thing: I was scared and alone and hormonal, and all I ever thought about was getting through the day without killing the thing inside me. But I can't do all of that again. Next time it happens I have to go to the hospital. I have to. I'll go insane if I have to do that all over again.

I return to Demyx's room in a daze, terrified again. I try to stamp it all out from my mind, thinking desperately about other things. I look at Larxene, resting in the crook of Demyx's elbow now, occasionally making the odd experimental sound. Nothing game-changing; she's still working out how to make noises. Demyx is copying her, going "Aaah, aaah, aah" whenever she does in a sing-song tone. Then he says "Hey, let's sing a song," And begins to trill a simple melody over and over again. Larxene laughs with joy, patting his face every time he stops so he will sing it again. Then suddenly she hits his face and he stays silent, which makes her wail until he sings the tune again.

"She'll have you there all day," I warn, pretending that I'm not entranced. He's better at keeping Larxene happy than I am. Everybody is, even Evil Babysitter. I guess I'm just not father material.

"That's okay," Demyx says, moving away, which makes Larxene wave her arms desperately in his direction, wanting more singing. "Apparently babies really like music. Then again, who doesn't?"

"Yeah, she's got this rattle," I say, wishing I'd taken it with her to the babysitter so Demyx could see how Larxene shakes it to a rhythmn (well, what sounds like one to me, a somewhat biased parent), but I normally leave it at home now because "it upsets the other children".

"You play an instrument?"

"I can't even sing," I admit. "I mean, I sing lullabies to Larxene, but she doesn't like them as much as she likes yours."

"Aw, don't say that," Demyx says diplomatically. "I bet you have a great voice." He's doing it again, probably complimenting me without even realising it. I feel myself blushing all over again as he goes back to pleasing Larxene with his little melodies.

I close my eyes as he decides to get his accoustic guitar and starts twanging on the strings to Larxene's renewed delight. He seems so carefree. I wonder what it's like. Still at school, playing on his guitar in his free time, never having to worry about money or shelter or children. I feel a hot pang of jealousy, just like when I see kids my age spilling drinks and candies out onto shop counters, or laughing amongst themselves at jokes I won't ever understand. I just want life to be simple like it used to be. I want to have family that supports me, rather than a baby whose life I will screw over if I don't get every step right. But hot agony flares in my stomach whenever I entertain the thought of giving up Larxene. I don't know what I want. I want too many things that contradict themselves. Maybe it's just the life-changing decisions that I don't want to make.

"Hey, Mar," Demyx says suddenly, and I realise that I've fallen into a sort of half-sleep. I shake myself awake, blinking away drowsiness. "I think Larxene wants a drink."

"She's not even crying," I say tiredly, wondering what the time is. I could only have dozed off for a few seconds, but it's disorientated me. I glance over at Larxene: okay, she's not crying yet, but she's close. So I pull out a carton of pre-sterilised milk (after the last incident I've always made sure to carry supplies around with her, just in case I'm held up somewhere) and pour it into her bottle. Demyx seems happy enough to feed her even when she dribbles milk all over his fingers and stains his shirt.

"I want to have kids one day," he says, holding Larxene close to his chest. "But I'm gonna adopt them. People say stuff like it would be really hard to explain why your kids' parents didn't want them, but I don't think so. It's harder when they ask why nobody wanted them, right?"

I wonder if I should tell them exactly how hard it is. I remember the sweating palms and sad eyes of the social workers who tried to explain to me why nobody wanted me, and at least they had a reason that time. But again, I keep quiet about my past, just nodding in agreement. "That's very noble of you."

"Haha, yeah. I think I'd make a great Dad, too. I'd get all my kids to follow their dreams and whatever they wanted to be, they'd be the best at it. That's what Aqua says. She doesn't mind if you want to be an acocuntant or a guitarist or an author or a builder, just as long as you try your hardest. Hey, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

"I don't know," I admit. "I'm not good at anything useful." I've never known what I wanted to be. I've never really thought about it. I guess by the time I was old enough to plan my future, I just assumed that I'd end up in a gutter before I ever got there.

"I bet you are. What do you like?"

"Not much." Right now it seems lame to say I like gardening. And anyway, what could I do with a skill like that? Helping Mr Wise out with his projects was one thing, but I couldn't do it for money. And if you can't do something for money, then it's useless. But Demyx is having none of that. He laughs and pushes my shoulder and goes "No, seriously, what do you like?"

"I don't have time to like things," I say irritably, "I have a baby to look after." We both look at Larxene, drinking messily and hiccoughing as she does so. "She kind of occupies every second of my waking thoughts."

Demyx pauses, still looking at Larxene even when I glance away, feeling angry. It bothers me that people think that babies are so cute and loveable. Yes, they are, but they're also exhausting and consuming and selfish, and nobody considers that when they dote on Larxene.

"Sorry," Demyx says finally. "I was only asking." But it's a stupid apology, and I don't like it. I wish people would understand how much of a sacrifice I'm making for her. I'm not even me, Marluxia Braefern, any more: I'm just Larxene's Dad. I know I didn't have hopes and aspirations before, but it's different now because I _can't_. I don't want to hang around with carefree Demyx and his melodies and his guitar any more. I want to go home and sulk.

"I should probably go ask if Aqua needs any help downstairs," Demyx mutters after a long silence.

"Yeah, I need to go home."

Demyx gives back Larxene and the bottle. I wrestle her back into her coat and shove her hat on over her head. "Where do you live?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious, but I don't reply. On the way downstairs he says "You can still come visit whenever you want. If I'm not home you can just hang out in my room until I get back. I'll tell Aqua that's okay."

He doesn't realise that I would always like to hang out in his room, because it's warm and comfortable and full of life, unlike my pitiful excuse for a home where I have to wear gloves indoors to stop my fingernails turning blue. He takes it all for granted, just like everybody else. So I just say "Yeah, okay," without looking at him and make my way back out through the customers, this time managing not to receive a cup of soup. Outside it's snowing in thick, heavy slurries. "Going to be a white Christmas," I tell Larxene as she tucks her face into my neck, disliking the cold snowflakes landing on my face. I haven't lived far enough north for it to snow on Christmas before. In another time and place, that would have excited me, but as it is I just trudge home through the collecting mounds of almost-snow on the pavelemt, worrying about whether it'll freeze into black ice overnight. Maybe I can stay at home tomorrow, playing games with Larxene and not worrying about getting out.


	7. 07

Larxene gets sick three days before Christmas. At first I just think she's being fussy when she doesn't feed properly at five AM that morning, but then I pick her up from Evil Babysitter in the afternoon and the first thing she says is "She's been coughing and wheezing all day. You need to take her to the doctor."

I'm not registered at the doctor's surgery in Hollow Bastion, so I have to take the bus to the next town over. It crawls through the brown slush on the road, wipers scraping against the flurries of snow in the windscreen. The only other people on the bus are an old couple and a school age kid sitting morosely on her own at the back.

"That's a cute baby," the old woman says to me when the bus shudders to a halt at a red light. I smile, but don't say anything. Larxene's breath is laboured, her last milky feed coming up in drips at the corners of her mouth. It's not like the times before when I still lived in the car and she was ill every other week, but my main emotion is still one of concern, just in case. I might stay at home with her tomorrow, especially since I haven't exactly been feeling great myself lately.

I held out on going back to Demyx for a few days, but then I missed him and moreover Larxene missed him, because she kept doing this thing where she'd grab onto my hair and put it in her mouth and then pointedly spit it out. I need to get a hair cut. My hair is a long, half-pink mess that flops into my eyes and gets in the way so much that now at work I tie it back with rubber bands, which are as painful to remove as they are difficult. I wonder how much Demyx spends on his elaborate hairstyle. But anyway, so I went back to the soup kitchen to see him and he got me to help make soup, which turned out to be surprisingly satisfying. I now have reasons to believe that I have broken a world record for the number of carrots I've grated in the space of an hour. He told me all about how Aqua keeps it going from the contibutions of the small army of people living upstairs and the donations she gets from rich people who still come in for soup. Later on I was introduced to Terra, Aqua's partner, a well built man with a face that looked like it was used to fighting, who took one look at me and said "Did you find yourself a boyfriend?" to a suddenly red-faced Demyx. He joked it off and hasn't said anything about it since, but that doesn't mean I'm not hoping.

The bus stops in town, the old couple get off, and a middle aged woman with two loud chilren climb on. One of the children needs to pee so much she whines about it every five seconds, her legs crossed and her hands in the folds of her skirt. The mother is telling off the other child, saying things like "No, you can't have your car until we get home, so stop asking!" This, of course, doesn't make him stop asking. And telling the daughter to shut up and hold it in has the opposite effect. As the puddle of piss spreads out on the floor I glance at the kid in the back: she's got her headphones in and her eyes closed, apparently oblivious to everything. I wonder if I'm going to turn out like that mother, worn down to her last straw, reduced to shouting at children she's supposed to be loving on a bus while one of them wails for a toy and the other cries and cries, urine soaking her tights. I pull Larxene tighter to my chest. God, I hope not.

The next stop is the hospital, so I gladly get out, shouting my thanks to the driver as I escape through the middle door. Immediately I am hit by a barrage of cold wind and icy hail. I push through it to the hospital doors, which creak in protest as I shove them open. Inside the air is warm and clean-smelling. I breathe in deeply, clearing the smell of piss from my lungs and the cold air from my windpipe as I make my way down to A&E.

Hospitals still scare me, but not as much as they used to. So I stay calm as I talk to the receptionist and even casually read a book while I sit next to the sick and injured and infirm during my wait for a doctor. Two and a half hours later Larxene is prescribed lots of rest and fluids with a directive to give her half an ibuprofen if she looks like she's in pain. "Keep an eye on her, though," says the doctor; "Infections like these can easily develop into pneumonia at this time of year. If she feels faint or has a fever, bring her straight back." He gives me a leaflet about pneumonia and other common baby illnesses which has seemingly been designed to scare the living motherhood out of me; he also tells me to take care of my own health, because it's easy for babies to catch things off their parents and vice versa.

The journey home through the darkness is long and dull. When I get in I kick off my shoes and take Larxene down the corridor for a shower, pulling the nozzle off its hook to wash her gently. I let the shower cubicle steam right up until we can hardly see each other, Larxene curled up against my naked chest, chest heaving. "Poor baby," I say, rocking her back and forth. "It's okay, I'll take good care of you. Lots of rest and lots of water. And I'll be with you all day tomorrow just like on Sundays so you don't have to be with Evil Babysitter while you're poorly. I'll wrap you up all warm and snug and clean." Larxene gurgles and dribbles on me. She's normally quite noisy and active, at least when she's awake, but now she moves lethargically, hands resting on her chest with her fingers just twitching every so often. I stroke her soft, pale skin. It's so smooth and clear, unlike mine. The blotches seem to stand out more when she's touching me, and they make me feel sad and isolated and alone. "It doesn't matter if Demyx is gay, does it?" I say morosely, turning the stream of hot water right down to a trickle, just enough to keep things warm. "He wouldn't like somebody like me. He probably just picks guys up all the time. I bet he felt sorry for me." I pull my wet hair out of my face and around one side of my neck, where it sticks to me. "If I had a pair of scissors I'd cut off all the pink," I continue, aimlessly, talking to nobody but myself. "It looks stupid now. It's hardly even pink any more, it's just… I don't even know what this colour is."

I wonder if Larxene, the other Larxene, still has dyed hair. It's probably some other ridiculous colour now, like blue or purple. Her birthday was in December, so she'll be sixteen now too. I can imagine her saying "Finally, I can have sex," and laughing at the irony as she takes another swig from a bottle of vodka. She probably goes to parties now, or maybe I don't want her to have found another friend to take out to the woods, because there was always something about her and me in that place that seemed special. But she wasn't sentimental like I am. She lives for the moment. Anyone would, with a shitty past and shitty prospects like hers. I miss her.

"We should probably get out of the shower," I say. "Look, you're already wrinkly." But Larxene is almost asleep, soothed by the hot steam rising up to the ceiling. I open the door and reach out for the towel, pulling it into the cubicle where I dry Larxene off as much as possible where it's still warm. Then, with her wrapped up warm I brave the cold air beyond the cubicle, smarting as it stings my skin. I am in clothes faster than I thought possible, then since another person comes into the room I take Larxene back to our place to dress her up. I tuck her into bed all warm and cosy, and even though she's sick she looks so comfortable and peaceful that I pull out the camera with its fifteen photos left and change that to fourteen.

"I need to make a call," I say, putting the camera back in its drawer. "You won't cause any trouble here on your own, will you?" I know you're not supposed to leave babies alone, but it'll only be for five minutes, and I'm only going downstairs to the pay phones to tell my manager that I won't be going in tomorrow.

It's already eight thirty. I slot my twenty munny into the phone and dial my manager's home number. She's got kids of her own, so she gets that I need to stay at home for my baby, and although I don't explicitly mention my own general shittiness I manage to sound seriously poorly myself over the phone, for extra sympathy points. I also call the Evil Babyminder, who seems all too happy to not have Larxene for a day. I return to find my baby in exactly the same position that I left her, asleep with her arms up by her shoulders. I climb into bed with her, curling my body around her for extra warmth, and I fall asleep that way even though I haven't had any supper or done any of my chores, my alarm clock turned off and all the insulating things I own piled on top of us to keep us warm.

I wake up because Larxene is poking her finger up my nose. I force myself to sit up, even though my head feels groggy like I'm thinking everything through a smokescreen. Larxene looks pretty worse for wear too. I change her nappy and feed her some milk and some pulverised avocado. Then I pour her a tumbler of water, which I get her to sip at every few minutes. We stay in bed all morning, playing with her cat sometimes, but mostly just resting. It feels nice to take a day off. Grown up, somehow. You have to have responsibilities before you can take a day off and stop worrying about them.

"Things aren't too bad, considering," I say to Larxene while I hold the cup up to her mouth, the warm bed and fluffy snow outside putting me in an optimistic mood. "You're alive, I'm alive. That's better than my mother did. And I have a job and a home. Granted, I only bought half my groceries last week so I could pay rent but, you know. It could be worse."

My baby books tell me that by now Larxene should be practicing to hold a two-handled cup. I don't have a two-handled cup, so instead I let her wrap her fingers around the tumbler while I hold it, her grip firm even if not quite weak enough to hold it herself. I'm trying to save up for a cup for her, but saving up for anything is proving hard work at the moment. Right now there's about nine hundred munny in my savings box, but it also has to pay for my bills and food (I have a separate fund for baby supplies, because that's my third biggest expenditure after rent and childcare), so I'm loathe even to spend eighty munny on a cup. These handleless tumblers will have to do for now.

We are just about to have another nap when somebody knocks on the door. This is weird, because nobody ever visits me; even my post, not that I get any, gets put in a pigeon hole in the lobby. And Demyx doesn't know where I live, except apparently now he does, because there he is, standing in the doorway looking nervous, pleased and concerned all at the same time.

"Woah," he says when he sees me, "No wonder you're at home, Marluxia, you're wobbling."

"Actually, I'm just here because Larxene is sick," I try to explain, but now that Demyx has mentioned it I realise how light headed I feel. I guess because I've been like this for days I didn't really notice the sickness coming on. "I'm fine," I lie anyway, letting Demyx in. "How did you know I lived here?"

"Well, I haven't seen you for a few days, so I thought I'd drop in to see you at the shop. But you weren't there, so I asked the manager for your address and, well, she took some persuading but voila! Here I am." Says Demyx. For someone as lazy as he is, he can be surprisingly enterprising. "Hey, it's freezing in here."

"Cheaper," I say, getting back into bed. Demyx looks in the fridge, asking if I want anything from the kettle. "Should've brought some soup," he says when I admit that I haven't got any tea or coffee, only a bottle of cheap hot chocolate. He sets out two mugs anyway, coming over to the bed while he waits for my ancient, second hand kettle to boil. "There were actually some things I wanted to talk to you about," he says, passing me my cup. "Firstly, Christmas is coming, and I kind of figured you didn't have anyone else to spend it with, so do you wanna come over? Aqua normally does a big thing during the day for all the hobos because she's superwoman, but you can stay the night too if you want. Whenever, really."

"I don't have the money to buy anyone presents or anything," I say doubtfully. It sounds nice, but I was kind of planning for Christmas to be a day at home, sleeping. But Demyx just laughs. "That's okay! Come anyway. I want you to be there. Nobody should spend Christmas on their own." I recall Christmasses of my early childhood, spent sulking upstairs while the other kids played pass the parcel and musical chairs, secretly hoping that someone would notice I was missing from the pack, and come and find me. In my head, they'd sit down on the bed and give me a special present, which was normally a puppy, and tell me that I was the best, most special child in the whole home, and in fact they had just been waiting for a good time to tell me that a wonderful couple wanted to adopt me and just me, and that's when they'd come in and whisk me away from all the horrible children, feeding me a roast Christmas dinner that wasn't boiled to death, giving me tons of presents and tucking me in at night. Of course, this never happened. Later on, I would devise ways of brutally doing away with myself so when they finally came upstairs, drunk and high on Christmas spirit they'd be confronted with a bloody corpse that would scar their Christmasses forever. They weren't ever serious thoughts. I only wanted to do it to upset them, because I was bitter and, just like all children, desperate for attention.

"Okay," I say finally, "Okay, sure." And Demyx grins into his hot chocolate for a moment before continuing cheerfully; "I know I upset you that other week when I asked what kind of stuff you liked, but Aqua and I were talking about you the other day and you should really talk to her about jobs and stuff. I know you're not happy in the shop, and she could probably help you find something better."

"I didn't even finish school," I tell him, yawning. Suddenly I feel too tired to talk. "So that kind of narrows down a lot of options."

"You should still talk to her," Demyx insists. "She knows a lot of people. The other thing I was gonna say is that like, Aqua also said that-" And he breathes in dramatically- "I should offer to look after Larxene for you during the day, until I go back to school. And I thought, it couldn't be too bad, right? And it'll save you a bit of money. So?" He looks at me expectantly. For a moment, I'm not sure how to react, so I yawn. Then I say; "You'd have to learn to change a nappy."

"How hard can it be?" Demyx asks disbelieivngly. I almost laugh, but then I'm too tired, struggling to keep my eyes open.

"Not hard, but not fun either."

I think about how much money I'd save if Demyx took over Larxene duties, just for a week or two. That would probably see me through the winter with the heating up a few extra degrees, or give me the chance to try out some more exciting foods with Larxene. I could open a bank account and try to collect some savings.

"That would actually be a great help," I admit. So that's what happens: Demyx takes care of Larxene while I'm at work until he has to go back to school, and then he does Saturday mornings too (which is probably the best time, because the Evil Babysitter charges a premium for weekends). I go around to the soup kitchen on Christmas day and Demyx gives me a two-handled cup for Larxene and I honestly hate him for it because it's wonderful, and then I sleep in his bed while he migrates to a mattress on the floor. Halfway through the night, Larxene sleeping noisily on my chest (her cold is clearing up, but her breathing is still loud and uneven), I wonder if I could just accidentally roll off the side of the bed and conveniently land next to him on the mattress. Of course it would never work, but I like to pretend that I could have done it, secretly. Then at New Year I tell him the story about how Larxene and I used to go get drunk in the woods because I didn't like parties, and we hand Larxene to Terra, and with our thickest coats on and our teeth still chattering in the cold, he takes me up to the Bastion with a few bottles of beer that end up so cold they sting against my lips.

"It's really easy to get in," Demyx says, ducking under a low beam to slip into the hollow carcass of a castle. "And nobody really cares if you do." We sit down on a patch of snow-less floor. "Sorry this isn't a wood, but it's close enough, right?"

"No, I like it," I say, leaning back against the brickwork and staring upwards at what might be ceiling or just a thick, black sky. Demyx laughs and says "I know, you stare at it every time you walk past." He moves a little closer to me, tugging his sleeves over his gloveless hands.

He says; "We need to keep an eye on the time," and glances at his watch. "I can hardly even make out the hands in this light."

"Does it really matter?" I ask. Normally, I sleep through New Years. At homes they'd wake us up at eleven thirty but it always seemed stupid to me to celebrate the minute when one year became the next. Who even decided when the turn of the year was supposed to be?

"Of course it matters," Demyx says. "It's a fresh start, a chance to start anew. And, you know, an excuse to party. Should've brought my guitar."

"You couldn't play in the cold anyway," I tell him, so I don't have to give my opinions on how stupid "fresh chances" and "starting anew" are. They're great until you realise that all the emotional baggage from your past life came with you, and then no matter how hard you try to live your new life it still just hangs over you like a dark cloud, making everything painful and difficult and isolating. I wonder if Demyx knows how that feels, or if he's just genuinely stupid.

"I guess." We fall into silence, sipping our ice cold beers. Snow cascades through openings in the castle, coating everything with a thin layer of white dust. Demyx clicks his tongue a little and says "Five more minutes."

I wonder if I could just kiss him, right now, just turn around and capture his blue lips in mine. But my chest feels heavy every time I glance at him and imagine the sensation. All of that emotional baggage, ruining my fresh start. I've never kissed someone I wanted to kiss, and suddenly I'm very afraid that Demyx's affections are just his personality and nothing to do with me. Why would he like me, anyway? He could do so much better than a wiry, ratty boy with a baby. So I try not to think about his lips, focusing more on the rim of my bottle, rubbing it against the palm of my hand so it doesn't sting my mouth.

"Two minutes," Demyx says. I glance at him very briefly, not daring to look too long in case he realises how beautiful I think he is.

I say; "What's your New Year's resolution?" Demyx laughs.

"Finish school. Get better at the guitar. Not do drugs."

"Have you had problems with not doing drugs?" This surprises me. Maybe it's because he's so cheerful and lively and open, but I didn't think Demyx would have been that sort of person.

"That was how Aqua picked me up," he says, suddenly sad again, rubbing at his hands. "After my parents, you know, the attack, I just. I mean. You'd go off the rails, wouldn't you? If you suddenly had nothing to bolt you down." I think to myself, it doesn't have to be sudden. "I got in with a bad group. I mean, I never did anything worse than ecstasy, but you know. It screws with you. Thirty seconds. What about you?"

"Not kill Larxene," I say briefly. Demyx giggles, thinking that's a joke. Then I let him count down, and at zero he yells to the whole world, as loud as he can manage: "_Happy New Year!_" and as if in reply fireworks light up the sky, illuminating the shadows of the Bastion each time they flash and bang.

We stay in the castle until the fireworks stop. Then we trudge home and I collect my baby, and maybe it's stupid and pointless but as I bounce her on my shoulder I whisper very softly; "Happy New Year, Larxene," and she falls asleep on me, warm and content, in reply. And I think to myself as I follow Demyx upstairs to his room, maybe this year will be better; at least, it would be hard for it to be worse.


	8. 08

With Demyx as a friend and more importantly Aqua as an ally, things get better with the passing of winter. One evening in February affairs at the soup kitchen are slow enough for her to sit down and talk to me. I tell her a little bit about my life in Traverse Town, leaving out most of the details like living in the car and Axel and pretending to be a girl, and the thing she picks up on the quickest is how I was always happier when I didn't have to leave Larxene to work.

"I think what you really need is to take a break," she says kindly when I go off on a little daydream about those weeks I spent in Traverse Town, before I moved here, when Larxene and I would spend all day together, enjoying each other's company.

"Yeah," I say, "But I can't afford that." Aqua smiles at me. She's a very pretty woman, made more beautiful by her hard work and tireless sacrifices for other people. She's so humble about it, too, never asking for payback or even recognition for her favours. I wish I could be like her, but I'm too selfish.

"That's what the soup kitchen is for," she says. "I'm sure Demyx wouldn't mind you sharing his room for a few months, and as long as you help keep the place tidy and the kitchen running you're more than welcome to call this your home."

I think about this for a long time, so long in fact that Aqua stands up and begins to tidy things around me. I say; "I still might work part time," and then "But it would be really nice to take a few weeks off completely," and finally, after a longer silence, "Hey, Aqua. Is Demyx gay?"

Aqua glances up from wiping down one of the work surfaces, then briefly looks at Terra, who is serving soup to the slow trickle of people coming in out front.

"He thinks you're very cute," she says finally, "And I'm sure that if you asked him out on a date he wouldn't say no." And suddenly I wonder how obvious it is that iI/i am gay, that she knows even in spite of Larxene, and how obvious it might always have been. I never came out to anybody except Larxene (my friend Larxene, not my baby Larxene), but only because I had a really frighteningly intense crush on one of Mr Wise's adopted sons at the time and didn't know what to do about it. She giggled and giggled and told me to kiss him, but I never did. His name was Aeleus, he seemed to me like he was at least seven feet tall, and he had this habit of working in the garden with no shirt on, which made me all hot and flustered around him. I wonder now how blatant it was that I secretly wanted him to do terrible things to me in bed, or if my lie that it was "just the heat" ever fooled anyone.

"Okay," I say evenly, doing a good job of hiding all my retrospective woes. But I don't do anything until my prepaid January of rent runs out and Demyx helps me pack up all my things so I can move in with him at the soup kitchen. The day, which is a Sunday, goes like this: Demyx arrives an hour late because he overslept, then he mainly sits on the bed playing with Larxene while I carefully decide what I want to keep and what I'm going to throw out. I already took my foster sister's clothes down to the pawn shop and sold them off for a pathetically small handful of coins, but the rest is a bit more complicated: do I keep the utensils and appliances until I move out somewhere else, or not? What about the baby things Larxene's grown out of? I couldn't exactly explain the rationale behind keeping them to Demyx.

"Hey, should I keep the kettle?"

Demyx glances up, Larxene's hands splayed out on his face. "Uh, do you want to?" He's useless at this. "I don't know!" I exclaim; "Do you want a kettle in your room?"

Demyx smiles: I've finally put the kettle question into a context he cares about. "Sure, why not." I sigh loudly and conspicuously as I put the kettle back in its box and add it to the ever-growing pile of crap that I own. Where did it even all come from? I don't remember carrying this much from the car in Traverse Town.

"The point of this," I say, unfolding another cardboard box and taping the bottom back up, "Is whether I sell the spare things or put them in boxes in your room. Do you want your room full of boxes of my stuff? There's hardly space to swing a cat in there anyway. I didn't just ask you to come over here so you could play with Larxene; this is actually important to you personally. Are you even listening?"

Demyx is singing to Larxene again. He does this all the time. Most of the time, I think it's cute, but then most of the time both of us are shirking our duties rather than just him. He only glances up when I stop.

"Look," I say, exasperated, "This here is what is going to go in your room. So far. Considering that we need another bed in there too, do you really think it's all going to fit?"

"We don't necessarily need another bed," says Demyx, so nonchalantly that I don't know if I've heard him right. He's been doing that casual flirting thing ever since we met, but they're always things that I could just explain away: not so the insinuation that we might some day soon be sharing a bed. And maybe I've just become a prudish maiden in this year of solitude, but that seems like way too forward a comment to make when he's only known me for a month. So even though I would secretly love to share a bed with him, I snap "Of _course_ we'll need another bed". Demyx looks at me like he's put out, and says "It was just a joke," in a hurt voice. Of course it was a joke! I just wanted it to be more, as usual. A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion that Aqua just said those things about Demyx to be nice: so what else could it be?

"Anyway, can you please stop playing with my daughter and start helping me sort my stuff?"

"Aw, come on, you're almost finished already," Demyx says, like the whole heap of stuff I still haven't packed isn't even there, but he pulls himself off the bed and puts Larxene on her play mat for some tummy time before marching right over to her drawer.

"Hey, are these her newborn clothes?" he asks, holding up a handful of stained onesies. I nod. "I guess you don't need to keep them. Unless you're planning on having more kids. And even if you are," he looks at the articles of clothing critically, "I'd still buy new." He's probably right: thanks to Larxene's propensity for vomiting horrendously frequently and my lack of satisfactory cleaning facilities, the clothes probably aren't even fit for wearing any more.

"I guess I was just being nostalgic," I say, tossing them straight in the bin. I keep the toys, though, for "sentimental reasons" (and also since they can be pretty damn expensive) with the exception of a few really chewed up ones. Larxene's teeth are starting to come through now, which essentially means that she will chew on anything, ever. Then Demyx tells me to throw away half of my clothes ("Why would you want to keep that? It doesn't even fit you any more!"). We go through everything again, this time taking out some of the bedding. Then just as I'm boxing up the last miscellaneous items Demyx reaches in suddenly and pulls out the camera. "Hey!" he says loudly, "What's this?"

"Oh, it's just a-" I begin, but Demyx yells "Smile!" and would have clicked the button if I hadn't pulled the camera out of his hand just in time. "I'm saving those! They're for Larxene!" I shove the camera back in the box, irritably.

"Sorry," Demyx says, sounding genuine. "I didn't realise."

"Of course you didn't." I tape up the box. "Are you going to help me carry these downstairs or do I have to do it myself?" And with a po-faced expression, Demyx picks up the box of Indispensable Cutlery and follows me downstairs to where Terra is waiting with his car. We fit everything in after a bit of reshuffling, and then I lock up and hand my key into the landlord on the ground floor, and away we drive. As the block of flats disappears behind me, I feel a little bit sad.

"So did you decide to quit your job in the end?" Demyx asks, holding Larxene tight and safe next to his chest. She's dozing lightly, dribbling onto his new band t shirt.

"I'm going to keep on for a bit," I say, "So I can open a bank account and get some saving done. Aqua's going to help me with that." Demyx yawns loudly at the first mention of finances. "And anyway, it'll be useful in case she needs me to move out." Or things with Demyx turn sour, which I'm always half expecting. What happens if we never go out? Will I just die of unresolved sexual tension? And what if we _do_? Will he go the way of Axel, wanting sex all the time and using my assumed sexual history against me?

We get to the soup kitchen, using the side entrance to carry all the boxes in. "Have fun," says Terra, and then we're trying to find spaces for everything in amongst Demyx's crap. He's supposed to have tidied up before I moved in, but predictably he's failed to do so. So half of the battle is stuffing his clothes into drawers and finding spaces for his guitar paraphernalia and shoving his school work out of the way. But eventually we get almost everything under the bed, and I have almost the entire area of the mattress to sleep on that night. When we're lying in the darkness Demyx says "You can sleep up here if you like," but I just lie still in the darkness pretending that I don't have the festering beginnings of a boner in my gut, because I don't know if he means I can lie with him or not.

After work on Monday, once I've done my fair share of washing out soup tureens from the kitchen, I go upstairs with Larxene sitting on my hip to find Demyx playing video games in our room. "Hey, Mar," he says when he sees me come in, "And hey Larxene." I feel her respond to her name. Demyx pats the bed next to him, and I obediently join him, watching pixel sprites jump over blocks towards some imaginary goal.

"So I was thinking today," Demyx says, looking at the TV, "About your hair and how it seriously needs cutting. I know you're kind of strapped for cash right now, so do you want me to do it for you? I do my own hair, so I'm pretty good."

"Sure," I say, lying down, too tired to really think about vanity and haircuts. "But don't give me a Mohawk."

"Aww," Demyx says jokily. I look at his back as he plays, too enthusiastically, body twisting like it's him jumping those blocks in the screen and not just a comical avatar. Then I look down a little bit. "I was thinking about something up by your ears. Lots of layers. You had a fringe before, right?" Evidently I'm more distracted by Demyx's tight jeans and what's inside them than I'd like to admit, because I don't reply immediately.

"Oh," I say vaguely when I realise the space between his question and my response is just a bit too long, "Yeah, sure. Do what you like, just don't make it really crazy. Something like Terra's would be nice, I guess, but with more at the front."

"You wouldn't look good with Terra's hair," Demyx laughs. Then he pauses. "You like it, huh?"

"I don't know, maybe it just suits him because he's got a nice face," I say without thinking. Terra _does_ have a nice face. I really don't see him like that, because he's too old and responsible and likes Aqua too much, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a pretty face.

"He has a nice face?" Demyx giggles and giggles. "Give it up, Marluxia, he's way too straight. Trust me, I tried." Then he glances at my pink face. "You're so cute. Most people just look at his ass."

"I didn't-" I begin, but of course I'm flustered, so Demyx isn't going to believe me no matter how adamantly I try to explain that it was only an aesthetic appreciation. He just grins in that way that means he thinks he's right and nothing is going to convince him otherwise. He just laughs at me and goes back to his game, asking "Do I have a nice face too?"

I scowl as I say "Yes,". Demyx looks at me again. Then he goes, plain as can be: "So are you bisexual or what?"

_I'm what_, I think, wondering how you can be attracted to people of the same or opposite sex if you are the same and opposite sex all by yourself. What I say is "Yeah, something like that." I pretend to be playing with Larxene, even though she's sulking because I wouldn't buy her the toy she grabbed off the shelf at the baby shop today and doesn't want to have anything to do with me. Demyx says; "Am I cute?"

"You're really cute," I say grumpily, "But I still want my own bed."

Demyx turns off the game and lies down next to me. "Sure," he says, "I'm told I hog the duvet anyway." He yawns. "And for the record, I think you're really cute too." And he rolls over and kisses my red-hot cheek. "But we could always have a duvet each on one bed some nights."

I don't really know what to do when Demyx gets up, smiling at me, then says "Be right back" and disappears. So is he my boyfriend now? Because Axel doesn't count, that means I've never had a boyfriend before. I try to remember what Larxene's boyfriends were like, but they were always years older than her and she didn't ever seem to care for them at all, since she usually got a new one every few weeks. "What do you think?" I ask Larxene, pulling her back onto my belly every time she wriggles away. "Look, I couldn't afford that toy even if I did want to indulge you, so there's no use sulking. Does this mean we're boyfriends now?" My heart flutters when I think about it, but it's a double edged sword, because at that moment I feel strangely and unpleasantly vulnerable, some special piece of me in Demyx's hands now whether he chooses to carry me with him or drop me like unwanted baggage. I shiver. Maybe I don't want this. Maybe I do.

Demyx comes back in five minutes later with scissors and a razor. He says, "Do you want me to cut your hair now?" but I have wound myself up so much in this time that without even taking in what he's said I blurt out: "So does this make us boyfriends?"

"Sure, if you want," Demyx says. He sits down next to me. "Am I your first boyfriend?" I decide that he means my first _gay _boyfriend, so I nod. "Aw," Demyx smiles. "I feel special."

I think about all the ways in which it really isn't an achievement to have low enough standards to date me, but I don't say anything out loud, just letting Demyx take me into the bathroom where he wets my hair all proper and begins, first and foremost, to get out all of the tangles that have been building up.

"You should take more care of your hair," he says, but I just shrug. There's not much time when there's a baby taking up all of your attentions. I don't think he realises that almost every waking thought I have is some way related to Larxene, and even when I'm at work away from her the only reason I'm doing it is _for _her, so when she grows ever larger I'll have the munny for new clothes and all the expensive follow-up milks and baby foods and chew toys and and and... the list just never ends. If I didn't love her so much, I probably would hand her over to somebody else to raise instead.

We chat about nothing in particular as Demyx slices my peach coloured locks into the bath, one by one. He takes a long time cutting layers into my hair, especially when it comes to the front of my face. I tell him about how back when I was fifteen I had it cut all fluffy around my cheeks, which I liked, so he does that again for me. The rest of it is even messier, mousy brown curls up around my ears, but Demyx gives it just enough flair to make it look like it's supposed to be that way. I like it. "Hey, Larxene," I say, picking her up off the bathroom floor (I'm never leaving her on a counter again since I put her on the desk in my old flat and she rolled off it onto the floor), "What do you think?" And she starts crying, which may or may not be a good sign.


	9. 09

I hate periods. I can personally guarantee that I hate periods more than any other human being on the planet. Since the age of thirteen I have been involuntarily subjected to roughly five days per month of dribbling blood like a wounded animal, painfully and messily. Sanitary towels are not designed for people with penises. Tampons hurt me. They would hit me at random in bed or at school or basically anywhere were I didn't have access to female hygiene products or painkillers; I have countless memories of hobbling, crippled, between classes, rocking back and forth on my chair in the hopes that the movement would make the pain less consuming. Worst of all, the cycle never "settled down" like it was supposed to. Sometimes the blood would be late by a week, or just never come at all. Once, when I was living in a care home again, I bled for two and a half weeks without stopping (and nobody noticed).

But now there's something I hate more than periods, and that's missing them. Yes, changing my bedsheets at five in the morning, hoping that Demyx doesn't notice the ugly smear of blood my body secreted in the night while I lie about Larxene puking again, is a horrible inconvenience, but counting the long weeks since I last had a period sends me into fits of terror and neurosis.

"I don't want to be pregnant again," I say to Larxene as I walk her through the peaceful husk of the bastion, pigeons warbling in their flight away from us, "I don't want to be pregnant again." I bite at my knuckles and pull on my hair, shivering in spite of the cheerful shafts of afternoon sunlight beaming in through the cracks in the woodwork. "I can't do it again. What would I tell Demyx?" I couldn't tell him anything. I'd have to run away again. I don't want to, I want to stay here and not be shackled by my past and for Demyx to keep on loving me forever even though I'm the worst boyfriend he could ask for, but things just don't work that way. "Or I could go to a doctor." But then I let out a pathetic little wail and just the thought of talking to a professional about my problems makes my insides feel like cold jelly. I clutch Larxene very close to my chest. "What do I do?"

Earlier today I went to the library and looked up all the early symptoms of pregnancy. I don't think I'm actually pregnant, because I remember all the tenderness and nausea from last time, and right now I feel fine. Relatively.

"But it's going to happen again eventually," I whisper, my throat feeling sore and sandpapery. "It's going to happen again and I'm going to have to go away and be on my own again and I'll have to wear girls' clothes and everybody will call me a slut and try to have sex with me and then I'll have another baby and I don't know what to do, Larxene," I am crying now, tears clouding up my vision, "I don't know what to do." The bastion doesn't seem so pretty any more now that it's swimming in front of me. I sit down less gracefully than I intend, in a little dark corner where the sun never shone and the bricks are cold. "I don't want to be pregnant again," I say, holding onto Larxene like a lifeline while she babbles at me, confused. "I'm scared." She touches my face. She does this when she wants me to smile, but I can't. I'm having a Bad Day. I hadn't really been thinking about it what with the soup kitchen being busier than ever and Aqua roping me in to help with clearing the debris from the blown-in shopfront next door, but I suddenly realised this morning that I should have had a period three weeks ago, and I'm scared. Strangely, the fact that this cool corner of the bastion reminds me of my warehouse comforts me. I was alone there, but I was protected from the prying eyes of other people and the pressure of their expectations when my home was a car on an abandoned industrial plot, my only visitors rats and foxes creeping in during the night.

"Marluxia?" I suddenly hear my name bouncing off the walls. It's Demyx, looking for me. "Marluxia, are you in there?"

Demyx quickly learned that whenever I disappeared, I came here. Sometimes it's nice that he comes and finds me. So I wipe my face with my sleeveand stand up, going "Yeah" in a voice that is surprisingly even. It takes us a moment to find each other.

"What are you doing here?" Demyx asks in his usual upset whine. "You were supposed to come out for coffee with me two hours ago, remember?"

"I changed my mind," I say, refusing to meet his eyes, fussing with Larxene's soft blonde hair instead. Demyx lets out a loud sigh.

"You always do this," he says, "You can get to work on time so why don't you meet me when you say you will? Don't you want to go out with me?"

"I just wanted to be on my own for a while." I start walking around the castle again, my footsteps echoing in distant corners and remainders of rooms. Demyx usually follows me, but this time he doesn't, just saying "Next time, can you please just tell me?" When I keep walking he adds; "Forget it. That's what I say every time." And he walks out again.

I am a terrible, terrible boyfriend. I am capricious and selfish and single minded and moreover I _know _I am, but sometimes I just don't want to make small lies up for Demyx's enjoyment, I just want to be alone. I wish he knew me better without me having to actually tell him anything. I hate to admit it, but I wish I was back in a home or with a foster family, because then they'd expect me to be dysfunctional and they wouldn't make stupid jokes when I was sick because they'd know it was my menstrual cycle (or at least, when they did I could blame me punching them in the face on PMS) and maybe one of them would drag me kicking and screaming to the doctor who would do something about my problems so I could feel normal again. But instead I have Aqua who is too nice to me for me to ever tell her anything terrifying, and Demyx, who I can barely live with but I can't live without. He's so gay he'd probably dump me on the spot if I told him I had lady bits, but I don't even want to tell him that I don't have parents. Maybe I'm afraid that he'll try to understand.

I wander home once the sun goes down, shuffling past the little collection of dedicated hobos settling down to sleep in their sleeping backs outside. Aqua is attending to them, giving them cups of Horlicks. "Demyx isn't very happy with you," she says just as I'm about to go in through the door. I freeze, scowling. "You should at least try to make it to your dates with him, you know." She passes out the last mug and ushers me indoors, where more people are sipping hot beverages.

"I'm having a bad day," I say petulantly. "He knew that."

"I know," Aqua says gently, sitting me down in the kitchen and stroking my hair. "I know, but it still hurts because it makes him think you don't care about him."

"He knows I do," I huff, "If I didn't I wouldn't be his boyfriend." But the logic doesn't hold up under scrutiny for two reasons: firstly, I wouldn't think he cared if he didn't bother to turn up for my dates, and secondly sometimes I wonder if it's more just having a boyfriend that I want than Demyx specifically.

"Things are more complicated than that," Aqua replies. She stands up and boils the kettle again, presumably to make herself a cup of herbal tea. "I know you don't find this easy, but he doesn't either. A lot of people have given up on him, you know."

"There's nothing even wrong with him," I say. He's just this cheerful guy who plays a guitar and a sitar and a ukulele and a whole load of other instruments I haven't heard of, and he slacks off and plays video games and doesn't try as hard at school as he is smart. He should try living my shitty life every once in a while.

"Nobody's perfect," Aqua says with her usual wiseness; "We've all got problems we're trying to learn to live with."

"Yeah, yeah," I say, pretending that she isn't right. I let Larxene out and stand her up on my lap, where she holds my fingers in her pudgy little fists and wobbles back and forth. She has these shoes that Demyx bought her one day, and she's worn them ever since. "This little piggy went to market," I sing-song, bouncing her up and down. I can't remember half of the rest of the words, so I make them up: "This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy played a ukulele, and this little piggy got punched in the face because he was gay."

"Don't say that to Larxene," Aqua chides.

"What? It's not like she's old enough to understand."

"Still," says Aqua. The kettle boils, and moments later she sits down again, stirring a cup of tea. "Demyx really cares about you, but that doesn't mean you can take him for granted. Relationships are hard work. Are you listening?"

I look up from making Larxene swoop about above my legs like a hovercraft. "Of course I'm listening," I say. Aqua sighs, her kind eyes just a little bit sad. But how could she ever understand how I feel? If anyone could be perfect, it's Aqua: she gives up all of her time and energy to help other people and for her, their thanks is enough of a reward to keep going. Sometimes I have days when I don't want to do anything even for me.

"I think you should apologise to him," she says.

"He'll know I only did it because you said so," I reply petulantly. Larxene is an astronaut on the moon, taking great gravity-less leaps into the air. She chortles with delight, kicking her legs up so she bounces on her bottom. When she's like this and not crying or pooping, she's almost cute. "Hey, Aqua," I continue, eager to change the subject, "Do you ever want to have kids?"

"One day," Aqua murmurs, "When I'm ready. I guess Terra and I will just have to see how things pan out, though."

"Would you ever adopt?"

"Perhaps," says Aqua. I regard her shrewdly. I can imagine her coming to visit a care home, chatting to the children and playing with the really little ones in the creché, who are so desperate for attention they'd do anything to get it. What I don't know is who she'd walk home with.

"Would you adopt a kid with issues?"

Aqua looks around at the kitchen, then through the dirty glass of the swing doors into the front room up ahead. The light is still on: the old woman who gave me the dummy is playing a card game with a man who was smartly dressed, once upon a time. Her baby is sleeping softly in her lap, its thumb tucked into its mouth. "What do you mean by issues?" she asks.

"You know, like behaviour problems. Or a disability." Or being intersex.

"Well, they're the ones who need a loving home the most, aren't they?" Aqua says, standing up again and making her way out of the kitchen. I hear something like "Come on, you two, it's getting late and people want to sleep. Look, I'll take care of these for you and you can finish your game in the morning. Is there anything I can get you before I turn out the lights?" A few minutes later she comes back in, flicking switches until there's just one more light left on in the kitchen. Outside, I can hear howling foxes and the roar of cars on the bypass a few streets away. "The same goes for you, Marluxia," she says to me and for a moment I think she's still talking about the people who need love the most and a big bubble of emotion wells up beside me - but then I realise she just wants me to go to bed. I sigh it out, wondering why I'm so disappointed.

Demyx is already in bed when I come in, listening to music on his Walkman.

"Hey," I say. He gives me a look.

"I'm still mad at you," he says. I ignore him after that, bundling up my pyjamas in silence and leaving for the bathroom without another word. I wish that people understood me. I'm also afraid that they just might. Normal people don't have these kinds of problems, do they?

I'm just pulling off my underpants when I notice that they're red on the inside. Relief washes over me. I'm not pregnant. I'm okay, for another month or so. I'll have to spend tomorrow in the foetal position while Demyx makes idle remarks about my immune system (or lack thereof), but the alternative is much worse. I steal one of Aqua's pads out of the bathroom cupboard, hoping she doesn't notice, and slip back into Demyx's room. He's turned out the light, leaving me to fumble through piles of school work and dirty clothes to my mattress.

"Sorry," I say finally when I think he might be asleep. There's a long pause.

Then Demyx says; "It's okay. Just tell me next time."

"Yeah," I say at length. The darkness consumes us, amplifying every breath and every movement of Larxene by my chest, tossing restlessly, small noises escaping her mouth.

Demyx says; "Hey, Marluxia?" He doesn't call me Marluxia very often, probably because any word longer than two syllables is beyond his intellectual capability. I feel my heart thudding in my tight chest all of a sudden.

"Yeah?"

I hear Demyx taking a deep breath.

"Do you love me?"

Do I? Do I? I don't even know what "love" means. I mean, I love Larxene, but I love her because she's my daughter and I'm the only thing she's got and the protectiveness I feel for her is all irrational and uncontrollable and scary. I love her because I don't have a choice: but real, proper love isn't like that, isn't it? Of course, all I need to say is "yes" and Demyx will sleep soundly tonight, but suddenly my throat is all sandpapery, and nothing comes out for a second. If I say something now, it won't sound sincere. I really like Demyx. He means security and companionship; when I'm with him it means I'm not alone, but is that really all that love is? How am I supposed to know?

So I say: "I love you if you love me," hoping that it's the right sort of response. And maybe it is, because Demyx laughs.

"Yeah," he says, "Yeah, I do."

And we wobble on and on, managing to make it through Demyx finding out about my birth marks ("You look like a zebra!" he exclaims, looking at my chest with an amazed expression on his face, and then, four minutes later, in a tone even more disbelieving, "You look like a marble cake!") and me quitting my job at the supermarket to spend more time with Larxene (I take a full month off, and then Aqua gets me a job at a local garden centre. Being Aqua, she's all very humble and generous, telling me that _I_was the one who got the job, but considering that she helped me write out a CV and convinced Terra to run through a mock interview with me I can hardly take credit). The work, earthy and real and satisfying, gives me an optimistic outlook on life. Fuelled by my days spent doing things I'm good at, the relationship even survives Demyx making friends with a group of drug users and starting to come home sometimes with a distinct smell of cannabis hanging around him and a dreamy, far off look in his eyes. What it can't survive, though, is me being pregnant again.

Lulled into a false sense of security by a year or more of erratic menstruation, I hardly notice that I've missed a period until a few weeks after when I start feeling that familiar nausea again, making me distrust foods I usually love and sending me running to the bathroom at the smell of Demyx's aftershave. I can feel myself clamming up, snapping defensively at Aqua when she offers to take me to the doctor and shouting at Demyx when I get home from work one day, having vomited twice in the toilets, to find him actually doing weed in our bedroom, the smoke hanging in the air like a thick, choking blanket. I spend at least two days a week in bed, too tired and grouchy and sick to move. I keep losing track of when I last took painkillers and probably overdose several times. My already fairly minute libido disappears completely: I find myself not even wanting to touch Demyx any more.

Aqua keeps prying and Demyx keeps complaining, but I can't tell either of them. I go down to the bastion even more, dodging the builders and hiding in the underground cellars where nobody's been for years, contemplating ways of removing this parasite before it consumes me completely before I catch myself and feel the hot blade of self-loathing. There's a person inside me, the tiny beginnings of a human being. How could I kill it? One of my foster siblings had this habit of saying to me sometimes, when he was feeling really spiteful: "you could have been aborted". And it was true, I could have been. I could simply not exist at all. And yes, I thought about death a lot, especially in my teenage years, but I never _really _wanted to die. And if I had, it would have been my choice, not my mother's.

Eventually, with the morning sickness beginning to recede to more manageable levels, I make up my mind: I have to see a doctor. I don't have to tell Demyx or Aqua, but I can't do this without medical assistance. It was a miracle that I even survived Larxene. I have to put my fears aside, for her and for my unborn baby and for me. So one day when Aqua is out at a Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee meeting I call up the local surgery and make an appointment. I very nearly almost don't go in the end, but I force myself to remember the nine months of agony and humiliation I will have to go through, and how much worse it will be if I try to do it alone. So I turn up and sit in the waiting room for twenty minutes, shaking like a leaf, until a heavily made up nurse ushers me into the consulting room where a smart doctor awaits my ailments.

"So," he says, turning from his computer to me. "Marluxia Braefern? What seems to be the problem?"

Just like everybody, he pronounces my name wrong, kicking the x when it ought to be smooth, but I am so nervous that I don't even correct him. It takes every ounce of energy just to open my mouth and say "I'm pregnant."

My body physically feels him looking at me, my short hair and broad shoulders and boy's clothes. I squirm under the scrutiny. Before he replies, though, I manage to add: "I'm intersex."

The doctor nods. I can't see through his professional poker face. He says: "Why do you think you're pregnant?"

Why did I think I could do this? I am afraid, so afraid, memories of other hospitals in other towns from my past lives festering into nausea inside me. I want to run away and curl up somewhere cold where I can pretend that I am still a tiny baby and my mother's arms are still wrapped protectively around me. I am too frightened to even look anywhere other than at my knees.

I say, with a great leap of courage: "I missed my period. And I feel nauseous."

"Have you engaged in any recent sexual activity with men?" The doctor asks. I shake my head tremulously. If I wasn't so rooted to the chair I would have run out of the room crying by now. I hardly even hear the doctor saying: "You're probably merely suffering from food poisoning or infection." I know what I need to say is that this has happened before and I'm displaying all the symptoms again, but all I manage is a very choked "No, it's not that."

The doctor thinks I'm stupid. He acts very professionally, of course, but he thinks I'm an idiot who doesn't know the first thing about pregnancy and when he refers me to a specialist in a nearby hospital he's just humouring my biologically impossible fantasies. The next appointment is in a month's time, so that gives me plenty of time to cultivate the baby inside me and therefore have greater proof that I'm right. When I leave my legs are shaking but at least I've got a chance to not be alone the second time around.

* * *

I was camping for a few days, but because I am Dedicated I still managed to keep up with my words. Almost.

On a side note, I had to do way too much research into pregnancy for this. You don't even understand.


	10. 10

When I get home, Demyx is really angry with me.

"We were going to go to the cinema this afternoon," he announces loudly when he catches me trying to sneak in through the side door. "You always do this to me! I'm sick of always being ditched!"

I don't say anything; I'm still too shaken from the appointment, the little half-moons in my palms still aching from having my fists balled up so tightly on the way home. Demyx tries to hand a suddenly crying Larxene back to me, saying; "And you left me to look after her all day! Where even were you?"

I just walk up the stairs, my knuckles yellowing as I cling to the handrail, like without it I might just tumble down again and break my neck. Right now, I wish I had a room of my own, a safe space where Demyx couldn't hate me for being a loner, but instead he follows me in and invades my personal space, saying nothing with his mouth but an awful lot with his accusing silence. He sulks on his bed, arms crossed irritably over his chest, huffing every few minutes like his petty behaviour will facilitate conversation. I, under my duvet, try very hard not to curl up into the foetal position. I hear Larxene gurgling unhappily, like she's all too aware of how unhappy and angry we are.

"Why do you always do this?" Demyx asks finally. I don't reply. "Why won't you even talk to me?"

I want everything to go away. Demyx, Larxene, responsibility and secrets and pregnancy. I don't want Aqua to care without understanding: I want her to know why I'm messed up and why my life sometimes feels like a continuous cycle of hell. It's almost funny: I used to hate it when people knew that I was intersex and fostered and had "behaviour problems" but now that nobody knows anything I just feel even more isolated from their normal lives. I want the world to go away; I also want it to give me a hug.

"This is really mature of you," Demyx says spitefully after a few more minutes. Like he can talk. I curl up a bit smaller, tucking my legs tighter to my chest. Larxene is babbling more loudly. I shut my eyes very tight, until I see surreal geometric patterns and rings of stars. I don't want to hear her crying right now. I think about the baby inside me, how it will tear itself out of me in a few months just like Larxene, and at the thought my legs instinctively press themselves together. Oh, God. A terrible realisation hits me as Demyx says "I don't even know why I'm still with you right now." I can't cope with another baby, I really can't. I'm going to have to go up to the hospital where people will ask me more questions and prod me with strange instruments and ask for an abortion.

"Other people appreciate me," Demyx is saying in a petulant tone of voice. I think about his new druggie friends. Is this why he started hanging out with them? Because of me? I want to say that I _do _appreciate him, but what has he done for me lately? He doesn't take anything seriously even when I wish he would: all he does is play games and talk about his school work like he even cares about it. None of his problems are even real problems. And he never even listens to me. So I don't say anything at all.

"Am I just a free babysitter to you?" Demyx asks. I scowl, wanting to say yes. "Okay," Demyx says snappishly at my silence. "Okay, fine." And he gets up and leaves. My senses reach out for Larxene just as she starts crying again, but my body won't move. I let out a tiny whimper. I'm sorry, I think, I'm _sorry_, but I still can't sit up and pull her off Demyx's bed and into my arms. She must want feeding, but that involves going to the fridge downstairs, which also entails the possibility of bumping into someone I'll have to talk to.

Eventually, I manage to reach the drawer where things are and pull out her dummy, stroking her hair to keep her content until I summon enough energy to go to the kitchen. I whisper snippets of nursery songs to her to keep her quiet, trying to pretend that I don't have to get up soon. My mind settles on Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again. It's a poem for little kids, so why is it so depressing? Maybe because it's true. Some people fall off the wall and then nobody can save them.

Finally I can't lie to myself any more, so I bundle Larxene up in a spare sheet so she can't kick me and wobble downstairs. Terra and Aqua are chatting about something or other, probably financial, in the kitchen; I try to sneak in without them noticing but Aqua turns to me just as the door squeaks and says; "Marluxia, is everything okay?"

I say "Yeah" in a very small voice. I can't look at her: I just concentrate on pulling the milk out of the fridge and warming it up in the microwave, using each mechanical motion to distract myself from her.

"Demyx says you didn't meet him at the cinema," Aqua persists. I catch Terra slipping out in my peripheral vision.

"I didn't feel like going," I say. There's half an avocado in the fridge too, so I pull it out and grab a teaspoon from the drawer. Larxene and I can share it upstairs.

Aqua sighs at me, but when she says "Can we talk?" it's still in that same, non-judgemental tone of voice, whatever views she has on the matter tucked safely away from me.

"There isn't anything to talk about," I lie, but my throat catches and only half of the sentence comes out.

"I think we both know that's not true," Aqua says, not unkindly. The microwave pings. I pull the milk out and make a run for it; but I moved too quickly and my head spins: I barely make it to the bathroom before I vomit messily in the sink, nearly dropping Larxene in the process. I am gasping for air, but it feels stale and acidic in my lungs. I spend a few minutes reorientating myself before I crawl back to my room, curling up in Demyx's bed. I don't care if he comes in and shoves me off in a stoned rage: I want to be comfortable for once in my life. I pull my duvet onto his bed and make a nest for myself and Larxene to cuddle up in while I feed her milky spoonfuls of avocado, feeling too sick and achy to eat any myself. I could almost be in the car again, we are sardined so tightly. I miss the car. Why do I miss the car? Maybe it's because there I didn't need to worry about a furious boyfriend throwing me out of bed in the middle of the night, even if rats and hypothermia were a problem instead.

"What happens when we break up?" I ask Larxene. "Where do I go then?" I have a bit of money in the bank account that Aqua helped me to set up, so maybe I can rent a room again. At least then I'll have some privacy. "We can work it out," I say a little bit more forcefully. "Okay, so that doctor thought I was an idiot, but they'll see that I'm right at the hospital. They can help me there. Things are going to be okay." I realise that I'm worrying more about my newest baby than Demyx: but the really sad thing is that I don't know how much of a lie this mantra is.

Sure enough, Demyx comes in at one AM, waking me and Larxene up as he staggers through the door.

"What are you doing?" He asks, looking at me in my bundle of bedding. His voice is slow and slurred. Drugs. "Jesus, Marluxia, are you a bird or something?" And as if this is the funniest thing ever he laughs, high and giggly, almost but not quite like that same laugh I fell in love with months ago. A chill suddenly runs through my stomach, quashing whatever words that might have otherwise slipped out of my mouth.

"Still ignoring me, huh," he continues, the humour leaving his voice just like that. I try not to look at his red rimmed eyes and loose limbs as he sways at the foot of the bed. "Look, can you move? I wanna sleep."

My body shifts lethargically as I unravel myself from my cocoon. I'm still not entirely awake, moving in a dream world that buffers me from Demyx's sour mood and the fact that at any other time he would have just climbed in with me. I almost fall face first into the mattress when Demyx's school bag makes me lose my balance. He doesn't thank me for moving, just moving into his bed, giggling again as he recalls some joke from the evening. The smell of cannabis makes me so nauseous that eventually I decamp to the bathroom just in case I throw up again. Demyx cracks one eye open as I leave.

"Where are you going?" I shrug. Like he cares. I don't want to talk to him. What does he want from me, anyway? He probably just took pity on me because I was this pathetic broke kid with a baby. Did he even like me?

I take the duvet with me, wrapping it around us as I sit down on the floor next to the toilet. I stroke my baby's soft hair. It's getting long now, still a silky blonde. I wonder if she'll start going mousy, like me. "Should I apologise?"

Larxene sleeps on.

"I guess I shouldn't have ditched him without saying anything," I continue uncertainly, "But he should expect it from me by now. And anyway, he's the one always going off with other people I don't even know. Who's to say he hasn't just found himself another boyfriend who he likes better?"

I grip the duvet tightly, tears stinging at my eyes. Logically, Demyx wouldn't do something like that: he's too honest, too open, too sincere. I want that to all be a ruse: I want to have a legitimate reason to hate him. But of course, I don't have one because, of _course_, the problem in the relationship is me.

Eventually, I fall asleep in the bathroom in a position that gives me a crick all over my body, woken only by a surprised Terra coming in the next morning to brush his teeth. He works a long shift up at the bastion, so usually he leaves before I wake up and gets home when I've already retired to my room.

"How long have you been here?" he asks me, only just noticing me in the corner when he glances in the mirror. I stand up without saying anything, and leave. Demyx is fast asleep, sprawled out on the bed with his leg hanging off. A month ago I would have climbed in with him, and I still almost want to, but instead I just sit down on my mattress. I can't go to work today. I'm too miserable. So I just bundle up with Larxene on my lap, gently rubbing her back to keep her quiet. Should I start packing today? Or can we somehow keep struggling on?

Part of me doesn't want to bother. It's more effort than it's worth to be nice to Demyx every day, and it's not like he's trying very hard to reciprocate my affections. Maybe I could just find a bedsit and leave without saying anything, like I always do. I'm not good at goodbyes. I don't understand them. It's not like it matters whether or not the people you leave behind remember you, anyway.

Demyx still isn't moving by eleven o'clock, so I get dressed and go downstairs. The soup kitchen is in full swing, which means I hardly get noticed in the crowd as I slip out into the street. I head down to the bastion, this time climbing up to the upper layers of the castle where the wind howls through the gaping, cavernous holes in the walls. Not for the first time, I seriously wonder what happened to this place. But nobody wants to talk about it, at least not without asking for some answers from me in return.

I dodge a passing builder, one of Terra's friends who I half recognised, and slide through a side corridor. I climb through an ajar door into what looks like a long-undisturbed library, or, to my eyes, a good place to hide. I duck under a desk and unwrap Larxene from her carrier (which is really just a glorified strip of fabric). I like the feeling of this room. It's full of old knowledge and lost memories. Around me, the bastion is half alive with the sounds of construction work. Why are they rebuilding this old bastion, with the rest of the town in ruins? Surely the munny would have been better spent on the shops and houses? But I only entertain these thoughts for a few minutes, because even I - having lived in this town for just six months - have fallen in love with this place and its inexplicable sense of calm. So my thoughts return again to Demyx. "I should apologise," I say to Larxene again, pulling her bottle out of my jacket pocket. "But he was shitty to me last night. And he was high again."

I bite on my knuckles, vaguely hoping that Larxene won't pick these awful habits up from me. Reflecting on the situation, I decide that I don't want to move out. I'll have to send Larxene back to a babysitter, rather than just leaving her with friendly hobos and hoping for the best (a surprisingly effective strategy). Thanks to Aqua's careful guidance, I've been putting most of my money in the bank, the rest of it by and large being spent on baby supplies and ingredients for soup. I wonder how much money I have now. What I do know is that I'd like to keep it for emergencies if I can.

So I go back to the soup kitchen - getting side tracked along the way by a billy of soup in need of stirring - and somehow summon the courage to go to Demyx and say sorry, but when I get to the bedroom he is nowhere to be found.

"He went to school," Aqua says behind me, making me jump about a foot in the air. She leads me away from the mess of a room. "Let's talk, Marluxia," She says, "Just you and I." I don't want to talk to Aqua, but I also do. I don't know. All I can do is let Aqua lead me into the garden. Apart from the bastion, this is where I spend most of my alone time. I like the unruly plants and long grass that nobody has time to mow. Normally it feels free: but not now that Aqua is pulling me by the hand to the corrugated plastic pergola at the end of the garden. She sits me down on a warping chair and says to be very gently: "What do you want, Marluxia?"

I think about this for a long time, but I draw a blank.

"For Demyx to stop doing drugs."

"I've talked to him about it," Aqua ruminates sadly, "But I can't stop him from making that decision any more than you can."

"Didn't you get him clean before?" I ask. "When he arrived here?" But Aqua shakes her head, saying "He chose that for himself."

So it really is my fault that he's doing drugs again. I swallow heavily, my gut sinking. As usual, I use Larxene as a distraction, playing with her soft little hands so I don't have to admit to Aqua that it's me who's the failure here.

"But tell me what you want," Aqua presses on. I look at her delicate hands, crossed on her lap, her clear nail polish belying the calluses I know are hidden on the pads of her fingers.

"That depends on the context," I say evasively, but Aqua just gives me such a penetrating look that I squirm and add "I just want to look after Larxene."

"That's very noble of you," says Aqua. This annoys me.

"You wouldn't say that if I was a girl." I know this from experience. But Aqua doesn't miss a beat, simply derailing me by saying: "Yes I would." Nobody has ever told me that when I was pretending to be female, not even Mrs Merryweather. Yes, she was pleasant to me, but more and more I am convinced that she only did it because I was paying her to be nice. I don't know what to do, so I just let Aqua continue: "I know she's your primary concern, but you have to think of your own requirements, too. Especially when Demyx is involved."

"What if I don't know what they are?"

Aqua looks at me with her deep blue eyes.

"Demyx is a fragile person too," she says, which isn't something that had occurred to me before; "He's been through a lot of difficult things. And he needs a lot of support from the people around him, just like you do. It doesn't take much for him to feel as though he's worthless."

"But he's not," I protest without thinking; "He's still in school and unlike me he's actually good at something. I've never met anybody who was so good at playing the guitar."

"That's true, but he doesn't see that in himself."

"So you're saying that I should be nice to him all the time to make him feel better?" I ask sourly. He certainly doesn't make the effort to do that for me.

"Of course not," Aqua laughs. "Nobody could keep that up all the time." She obviously fails to notice the contradiction that it is her, Aqua Victoria Seymour, who is saying this. "You two just need to talk about your problems and work things out."

"He probably wants to leave me for one of his new friends," I mutter. "So there's not much point trying."

"You don't know that for sure," says Aqua. Someone yells at her from the house, but she calls back that she's busy. "And you won't sort anything out if you don't talk to him."

I lift Larxene up on my lap. She's getting better at standing up on her own now, even wobbling forward by herself for a few steps before she flops down into a crawl again. I pull her into a hug, needing the comfort, even if she doesn't understand why I'm unhappy. I say: "But if I talk to him he might eventually break up with me." This scares me. But what scares me more is that by losing Demyx I lose the security of a place to stay and company to support me. So I add in a very small voice: "Can I stay here anyway?"

"Of course you can," Aqua replies immediately; "We'll find space for you somewhere." I imagine Larxene and I squashed into the airing cupboard, which almost makes me laugh. A small weight lifts off my chest: at least I'll still be able to stay with them if I need to. Yes, there's still that issue of the huge crushing fear of my pregnancy, but at least I don't need to worry about my home for a while yet. So we go back inside where Aqua quickly reasserts control of the cooking processes in the kitchen. I slink upstairs while she's distracted by the oven and spend the afternoon teaching Larxene to walk, holding her hands and swinging her to and fro, loosening my grip a little every time her feet come to rest solidly on the floor. When Demyx comes back maybe I'll convince him to take a photo of her standing up, for posterity. Larxene squeals with delight every time I do this, even pulling herself away from my fingertips to toddle off until she falls head first onto the floor and starts crying. Demyx comes back very late at night, while I am reading Larxene a story about farm animals (although she's more interested in the sound the book makes when she slaps its cardboard pages).

"I didn't think you'd still be awake," he says, sounding disappointed. I look at him, frowning. "Hello to you, too," I say.

Demyx looks at me guiltily as he changes into his pyjamas.

"Hey, we need to talk, I guess," he says.

"Did Aqua ask you to say that?"

"She's right," Demyx says. He sits down on the bed, fiddling with his sleeves, and goes "Um."

I think, I have to apologise to him for yesterday. And also in general. So before he continues I say all in a rush: "I'm sorry I didn't go to the cinema with you. I had a bad day."

"I, uh, that's okay," Demyx replies. He looks at me for a long few seconds, and even though he's my boyfriend I still squirm a little under the scrutiny, feeling as though I am silently being judged. Then he continues: "I didn't care about that. I just wanted to say..." but he trails off, looking away again. He glances over the posters on his wall, torn and peeling and each one taped on in twenty different places. When I can see his face again, he's beginning to cry. He says; "Marly, I met someone. And I really like him. He asked me out and I said no because I already have a boyfriend, but, you know."

The only thing that comes out of my mouth is "Oh". Something sardonic curls in my stomach as Larxene starts babbling, maybe to fill the silence. Demyx looks at me imploringly.

"It's not your fault or anything. I don't want you to think it's because of last night. I should have told you earlier."

I try to laugh, even though it's the last thing I want to do right now. "It's okay," I say; "I know I was a shitty boyfriend anyway."

Demyx says, "I'm really sorry, Marly." And he climbs off onto my bed, wrapping his arms around us. "I still think you're really cute." And he says this without the faintest hint of insincerity or malice in his voice, which considering what I am and how I've treated him is nothing short of a miraculous testament to Demyx's eternal goodwill.

That night I sleep in with him, the three of us all making each other's limbs too sweaty because we're lying so close together. I drink in the fragrance of my first boyfriend, my squeaky clean, deodorised Demyx, for the last time, while he strokes my hair and tries to list good things about me and our relationship. It doesn't take long for him to fall silent, and when he does the lull in conversation is so comfortable and inviting that I nearly tell him about going to the doctor, except a terrifying darkness of uncertainty yawns up inside me and swallows my resolve. By the time it relinquishes its grip, Demyx is snoring softly. I stare up at the invisible ceiling and whisper very quietly; "Demyx, I'm pregnant."

The reality of this fact hangs in the air for a few seconds. Then I wake Demyx up just to cry into his chest. I guess he thinks I'm upset about the break up, but that's okay: he still holds me tight and whispers things that make me feel better like "I'm sorry" and "Everything is going to be alright". I pretend that he knows everything, which helps.


	11. 11

The second appointment looms. I keep checking my secret pregnancy book, just to make sure that I'm displaying all the right symptoms, terrified of being wrong about this. Demyx introduces me to his new boyfriend, an older ex-hobo called Xigbar who has long hair and one eye and an annoying habit of saying "Dude" at least once per minute. I wonder what he's got going for him over me, but that question is speedily answered by the readiness with which Demyx moves in with him. He still comes to visit me every few days, determined to make our break up a friendly one. I don't mind his disappearance from the soup kitchen so much: I get his bedroom all to myself now.

Demyx leaves a few boxes of stuff, but I pile them all up in one corner and clear everything up so I can lay Larxene's play mat out again and she can crawl anywhere she likes without me worrying that she'll eat one of Demyx's guitar picks.

I keep trying to tell Aqua about the pregnancy, but I don't ever manage to find a chance to explain everything from start to finish without choking up inside and running away to complete some fantasy errand instead. Eventually, the week of my appointment dawns. I know I'm getting more skittish, but I can't help it. I've started bleeding on and off, and the best advice my book (and the others I trawl in the library one lunch break) can offer is that I should see a doctor, never mind the fact that it's taking all the energy I have just to convince myself that I can go to the hospital. Everything else in my life is just flowing over me like a flood. Demyx arriving one morning with a satisfied grin on his face and a dreamy, love-struck aura I could never elicit in him doesn't leave me feeling angry, just tired and inadequate. When Larxene throws a hissy fit because I'm trying to feed her strawberries, I simply leave her with a friendly customer and lie down. Aqua doesn't get through to me again, even though she tries. I've clammed up too much.

The morning sickness fades a little, but instead I end up with a crippling stomach ache and spots of red blood on my pants. I pretend that I have a fever to get one of the soup kitchen's other residents to make me a hot water bottle, and spend the day alternating between bed and the toilet. I probably take enough painkillers to kill my unborn baby several times over, but they don't help much. The pain doesn't get worse, but it hangs around in my womb and my shoulders and my knees. Towards the end of the day Demyx pops in to play with Larxene and says "Hey, Mar, you've got your monthly sickness again." I groan at him, which makes him look at me with greater concern. "You really don't look so good."

What is wrong with me? Was this whole thing a false alarm, and this just another late period? I was so sure that I was pregnant again. I need to check my book to see if this is normal or genuinely serious, but Demyx is singing songs about fairies and dragons to Larxene, so I have to wait it out, my mind concocting terrible scenarios in which my stomach explodes or the baby has to come out through my penis.

"Xigbar's here," Demyx says when he's finished the song. "But I figured you might not want to talk to him, so I left him downstairs."

"No, it's fine, you go fetch him," I say generously, spying an opportunity to check my book. Demyx disappears with Larxene on his hip, and as soon as the door closes behind him I tumble gracelessly out of bed and pull it out of the drawer. It says, alarmingly, that I am in danger of miscarriage and should seek medical attention immediately. This knowledge makes my knees feel weak and my hands shake, but I force myself back into the warm, sweaty enclave that my bed has become just in time for Demyx and his new boyfriend to return.

"Hey, dude," Xigbar says, grinning at me with his single remaining yellow eye. "You look like a heroin addict going cold turkey there." Xigbar says things like this a lot. I doubt that his internal systems have functioned without drugs for years; although his wits seem sharp an aura of weed hangs around him, and he has the yellow fingers and dry cough of any smoker.

I let the pair of them play with Larxene until nature calls again and I have to stagger off to the bathroom again, the duvet still wrapped around me. Although I've been wearing pads for a few days for some reason it is beyond human capability to design them to work in a horizontal position, and I actually feel the blood running down my leg as I wobble awkwardly down the corridor. A lot of blood leaves me in the five long minutes I spend on the toilet. When I stand up and peer into the bowl, I'm half expecting to see a tiny human being drowned in the water, but all I can make out are shapeless lumps of flesh in the blood. I stare at it for a long time, and when I flush it all away, I feel strange. What if my baby really was in there, and I just flushed it away like a dead goldfish?

I change my pad and go back to Demyx and Xigbar. Have I been crying? I don't even know any more. I manage to climb into bed, and then I just want to sleep. Demyx fusses over me a bit, but I shake him off, telling him that Larxene would enjoy the attention more than me. Eventually he pulls out his spare guitar and starts doing duets with Xigbar. "Sing a lullaby," I croak. Demyx picks one out, his melodious voice striking a contrast against Xigbar's throaty growl. Amazingly, in spite of the pain in my crotch, this sends me to sleep. I wake up late the next morning to find Larxene tucked up against my chest, and a little note from Demyx saying "Couldn't wake you up. You were sleeping like a baby!" This makes me smile, because he knows just how badly babies sleep from months of experience.

I spend the rest of the day in bed, Aqua bringing soup up to me occasionally, but I feel better. Half of this, I suspect, is from assuming that I'm probably not pregnant any more. I check the book again, reading it with a clearer head, and I'm sure that I'm having a miscarriage. But on the other hand, that means my baby is dead. I don't know how to feel; so I try to push it all away and move on.

Aqua and Terra look after me until I feel good enough to go back to work. I don't make my appointment in the end. What's the point? They'd just think I was a moron freaked out by a food baby. My periods return after a lengthy pause, ruining my plans here and there. Demyx and I have an argument about drugs, but I think he realises it's only because I still care about him. Larxene starts toddling about by herself, so I fork out for a pair of shoes for her. She falls in love with them so much that if I try to take them off, she cries (I even use up one of my photos to take a picture of her showing them off). Without Demyx to distract me, I get really good at making soup. Life goes on. I push my baby that never was into the pile of things in my past that I'd rather live without.

Eventually, I decide that I have leached off Aqua for too long and it's time to move into my own place. I have enough money in the bank to make an advance payment, which means I can get a nicer room. This time I even have my own bathroom, and a window which seals up nicely to keep the draft out.

"Look at this, Larxene," I say cheerfully the afternoon I move in, "We're going up in the world." Terra helps me unload my things again; I'm not really seeing Demyx so much these days. He's happy with Xigbar, and I try to be happy for him. Last time I saw him, I asked if he wanted to take away the rest of his boxes, which he did after some deliberation. But he left his old guitar, the one that was difficult to tune. For some reason, I couldn't throw it away, so instead I prop it up in the corner of my new room for decoration. Then I half unpack everything else, leaving in the boxes the things I might not need for a while, like Larxene's old baby things.

I've been dreaming about my dead child lately. I bled for a week or so like I was having a normal period, and that was it. All that really became of all that pain was that I felt a little grouchy and light headed for a few weeks. I keep thinking about how I could be heavily pregnant by now, planning for a new life in the world. But on the other hand, I'm still free, still in Hollow Bastion and just about emotionally stable enough not to freak out and break down in public.

I make spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, which we eat on the bed. Larxene's teeth are coming through, which really just makes her want to chew everything and anything in sight even more. I spoon feed her bits of chopped spaghetti and mince, which mostly dribbles onto her bib. "Come on, Larxene, show some decorum," I chide her, wiping her face with a bit of tissue. But she still just babbles at me, more interested in expressing her opinions than eating. Then, suddenly, out of the nonsense comes the word "mama". We look at each other, her weepy eyes suddenly very wide and clear.

"Mama." I say. She parrots me. My heart suddenly gives out a little flutter. I forget about supper, trying to extract more sense out of Larxene's meaningless sounds. It doesn't occur to me until later that she's calling me her mother, and even then I can't bring myself to care. My hard work talking to Larxene all the time is paying off; soon she'll be saying more real words and one day even whole sentences. The future suddenly opens up in front of me, all of this progress I can look forward to, and also opens my eyes to how far we've come already. We cuddle up together, chatting nonsense until Larxene ruins the moment by peeing and needing a new nappy. It's nice to be alone again, just the two of us, no hubbub from the soup kitchen downstairs or disturbing my neighbours. I wonder who's taking my old room. Probably one of the four girls who were sharing a double bed at the back of the house.

A week or two later, while I'm playing with my chatty baby at home, Demyx drops in with a handful of papers and a huge grin on his face. We've bumped into each other in the soup kitchen or generally out and about a few times, because Hollow Bastion is a small place for people like us, but we haven't really had time to talk: so this intrusion is sudden and unexpected and, somehow, rather nice.

"Hey, Marly," he says, laughing when I roll my eyes. "I got my final exam results, look." He flops down on my bed, handing me the papers. I glance over them: a D, a few E's, an A and a U.

"What happened to politics?" I ask disparagingly. Demyx groans at me. "I was probably high during the exam," he says languidly. "Give me a break. I think I made a pretty good case against capitalism, personally. But look at music! A!"

"Very impressive," I say dutifully. I don't really know what it takes to get an A in school: I left too young, and was destined to whether or not Larxene was to come in to my life. I'm about to add something sycophantic about how good Demyx is at music, but he's already distracted, spying his guitar in the corner of the room.

"Hey, you kept it!" He reaches over and picks it up, murmuring "Hello baby," as he twists the tuning machines to make it perfectly pitched again. This makes Larxene perk up from her position on the floor. "I also got a job," Demyx says, twanging out a simple melody. "In a club in the next town over. I'm saving up to go to the Pridelands Festival next year. Maybe I'll meet some big names there."

I remember Demyx's dream to be in a band and earn back everything he owes Aqua. "Congratulations," I say, but Demyx isn't really listening. He slides off the bed to play tunes to Larxene. "So how are you?" he asks after a very musical rendition of Old MacDonald Had A Farm. I shrug. I'm about to say "Same old," but then Demyx sets the guitar aside and picks up Larxene, cooing about how she's grown and what a big girl she is, so I ask if he wants a cup of tea instead. "Oh, yeah, thanks. Hey, you sit down. I'll help myself." And Demyx acquaints himself with my kettle and dripping tap.

"How are you getting on with Xigbar?" I ask, taking Larxene back. She tries to chew on my chin, and I can feel one of her front teeth almost pulling through.

"We're doing great," Demyx says, "Yeah, we're really good. You'd think we'd just be bumming around, but he was the one who kicked me up the arse to get a job." Then he seems to catch himself, looking at me sadly. "Sorry, Mar, I shouldn't go on."

I shake my head. I probably could have found another boyfriend by now, but actually I kind of like being alone in this way. My secrets lie safe and deep as long as I keep everyone at arm's distance, just how I like them best. "It's okay," I joke, "I don't want to subject anyone else to me anyway."

This makes Demyx laugh at me. "You were nice when you were there. You just had a bit of a problem being in the right place at the right time." I can't argue with that, so I just smile, adjusting Larxene's t shirt. Most of her clothes are things Demyx bought her for her birthday, so instead of being cute girly things she mostly has whatever _he _thought was cool, which mostly comprises of Super Mario merchandise and shorts with guitar motifs on them. If it weren't for her long hair, people might think she was a boy. She is so going to grow up with gender issues. Like father, like daughter.

Demyx doesn't talk again until he's finished prodding the life out of he teabag, at which point he says; "So have you met the neighbours yet? Because I got the wrong number at first and the guy next door to you is super cute. I'm eighty six percent sure he's day, too."

"I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now," I promise him, but I file that information away for later, just in case I feel the need for a boyfriend. All I have to do to introduce myself is "accidentally" make too much supper one night and offer it to him. I've seen it happen a hundred times in Demyx's old videos.

"Girlfriend?"

"Nah," I say, gesturing to Larxene. "I've learned my lesson in that department." I'm pretty sure that's not how sexuality works, because the horror that was Axel certainly didn't succeed in putting me off men, but Demyx seems to buy it. He stays for most of the afternoon, spoiling Larxene rotten with his music and cheerful chatter, until he checks his watch and realises that he's got to be somewhere for a date with Xigbar "and, unlike some people, I actually turn up to my dates."

"What do you two do together?" I ask. Demyx and Xigbar are so different that I can hardly imagine them having anything in common.

"Oh, you know, we talk. And we make music together. He writes songs and I sing them. We're going to see a film tonight. I guess it's just the usual couple stuff. I'd invite you too, but you know."

"That's fine, I don't want to be in a cinema with you giving each other goochy eyes the entire time," I joke. Demyx giggles, saying "True, true. Being a third wheel is never pleasant for anybody. I meant Larxene, though."

We look down at her, crawling between us on the bed. She's discovering the art of repetition, so much of what she says is currently the same syllable over and over and over again. Right now, she really likes "ba", which makes her sound a bit like a sheep impersonator. "That too." I say.

"That reminds me," Demyx says suddenly, "There's a new kid swimming pool opened up in Radiant Garden. You know, the ones with flumes and slides and stuff. You should take her there. I heard somewhere that babies can swim instinctively."

"Yeah, maybe," I lie. Fat chance. I hardly ever felt comfortable taking my shirt off in front of Demyx in the privacy of our bedroom, let alone wearing nothing but trunks in a pool full of strangers. And maybe Demyx notices my insincerity because he adds; "Hey, Mar, it's hardly even noticeable. And nobody even cares anyway."

"Radiant Garden is a long way away," I protest. I fool nobody.

"You shouldn't feel self conscious," says Demyx. But he has no idea. "Anyway, I need to head off, or I'll be late. See you soon!" He gives me a hug and off he goes. I finish off his sugary tea. "Come on then, Larxene," I say when I'm done, "Let's go to the park."

We put on our shoes and out we go, shuddering down the rickety old lift to the ground floor. Then we step out into the brilliant sunshine. I breathe in deeply, tasting the dusty Hollow Bastion air. I carry Larxene until she kicks her legs, which means she wants to walk; then I hold her hand and let her step forward uncertainly until she sits down, which means she wants to be carried. She's getting good at communicating, even without words. I know when she wants feeding, or which toys she wants to play with, and a hundred other things. It's only ten minutes to the park (it would be five, but Larxene slows things down considerably), which really just consists of a football field, a duck pond and a few swings. I put Larxene onto a swing first and rock her back and forth, remembering my childhood spent swinging alone while other kids took turns on the slides and roundabouts. I'll make sure that Larxene has friends, I think seriously, carefully ignoring the fact that since Larxene is a member of exactly zero baby groups, I am not doing a very good job. In fact, she has probably never played with someone her own age (I say probably because I'm never one hundred percent sure what goes on while the hobos are taking care of her). But clubs cost money and require socialisation with real mothers, which scares me. So I suppose that for the mean time, Larxene will just have to be a loner like me.

In September, I decide that I need to get into shape, a choice mainly influenced by my ailing self confidence and the accidental discovery that Xigbar, who is in his thirties, has a fucking six pack. I, meanwhile, still haven't really lost the flab from Larxene, and living on my own again has made me double aware of my less-than-healthy diet. "And I have to set a good example for you," I say to Larxene. She is eating a lot more solid food now, like bread and cheese and spoonfuls of soup. So I get an alarm clock and take myself out jogging every morning before work, starting with just a quick run around the block and working up from there. I buy lots of extra vegetables and fruit, knowing that I'm cheap and would rather eat them than left them go off. I construct a silly little routine of sit ups and push ups (or at least, to begin with, _one_ push up), which I perform for Larxene's entertainment most evenings. Under this rigorous routine I begin to feel a lot better, and more peaceful. It's easier not to think about big, scary things when I've tired myself out so much during the day that come evening I just fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I use my double dinner tactic on the "cute guy" next door, but he turns out to be pretty boring, so the relationship never progresses further than the occasional food swap. That's okay. I get on fairly well with the gardeners at work, who are suitably impressed by my needlessly extensive knowledge of plant species, and I still visit Aqua as often as I can, mostly just to reassure her that I am alive. One day when I drop in to see her she takes me to one side and presses two necklaces into my hand, their pendants shaped like stars.

"I made these for you," she says. "They're good luck charms. I'm sure you've heard the old myth about the star shaped fruits." Of course I have: I've even told it to Larxene a few times. "I trust you to give the second charm to Larxene when she's old enough not to eat it." It takes me a long time to realise this, but she knew that I wasn't going to stay in Hollow Bastion forever. The charms weren't just for good luck: they were something to remember her by.

And sure enough, when I lift the chain of the necklace over the head of my grumpy four year old daughter, it's because we are moving away to start a new life in Radiant Garden. I haven't told Aqua this, or Demyx, but I know they'll put the pieces together. Maybe Aqua, who seems to know people better than even they know themselves, will even understand that I'm moving because my stomach is again displaying a familiar curve, and that means that it's time to run.


	12. 12

Radiant Garden is a beautiful town. It's one of the few places in this area which still has a king, the others almost exclusively having moved on to local democracies, considering monarchy a relic of a bygone era. But Radiant Garden _is _that relic, a collection of old brick houses and well maintained public flowerbeds and towering waterfalls two, three, four times my height. Just like Hollow Bastion, it deserves its name.

My new flat is on the outskirts of the town, on the edge of one of the town's many sparkling waterways. It's in the industrial region of the town, the metal stairways to the footpaths clanging beneath my feet as I carry box after box up from the taxi I splashed out on to move us here. Big brass pipes hang overhead, creaking in the wind, obsolete now; weeds of all shapes and sizes grow from cracks in the old architecture. Everything is quiet and peaceful. I breathe deeply, my lungs for once empty of the omnipresent dust of Hollow Bastion.

"Isn't this nice?" I ask Larxene, who has been doing an admirable job of following me around empty handed as I heave luggage up to our new home. She shrugs.

"I guess."

At least she helps me unpack, arguing when I try to call the shots on where our stuff ought to be stored: _she_ wants the wardrobe, even though her clothes take up half the volume that mine do, _her _toys ought to be in the bedside drawer instead of my books and hygiene products, _she _wants the medicine cabinet in spite of the fact that all she's got to put in it is a toothbrush. I have long since resigned myself to the fact that my daughter is already a selfish bitch, so all this behaviour elicits in me is a sigh. Larxene's tantrums don't work on me, at least not in public.

We spend the afternoon unpacking until I reach the kettle, and then we make tea (Larxene likes it, but only with about sixty spoonfuls of sugar in it). I habitually save the teabag for later. Then I recede into the bathroom to change.

I've grown a lot since I lived in Traverse Town, in pretty much every direction. I am now an unfeminine six foot and one inch; my shoulders have broadened and my muscles tightened around my bones. I do not look like a woman in the slightest. Even my chest and stomach, swelling now, just makes me look as though I like alcohol a bit too much. I just have to pray that make up and dresses and Larxene will be enough to stop people asking too many questions.

I pull off my jeans and button-down shirt and stow them in a corner, missing them almost as soon as my fingers leave the fabric. I reluctantly put on my new 36A push up bra, which on the packaging promised me that I would have "ultimate cleavage" and "look up to two cup sizes larger". I do not. I look, unsurprisingly, like a man in a bra. I pull on tights to conceal the hair on my unflatteringly defined legs, followed by a long skirt. The fitted blouse and cardigan come last, and then it's time to spend twenty minutes in front of the mirror with foundation and lipstick and mascara and hairbands in an attempt to eliminate the drag-queen air that hangs unpleasantly around me. Eventually I have made myself up so many times that I'm losing track of what I'm even trying to achieve, so I give up, pull my hair around my face to hide my square jaw and Adam's apple, and step outside. Larxene looks up from her ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny between Barbie and Ken.

"How do I look?" I ask. Maybe if I hold my shoulders closer to my chest and stoop a little I can look smaller and more convincingly womanlike.

"You look really silly," Larxene replies sourly after a moment's inspection. Then she asks for the fiftieth time: "Do I _have _to call you Mummy?"

I run an agitated hand through my hair, but I catch myself and quickly rustle it back in front of my eyes. "Yes. I'm your Mum now. No arguments."

I'd forgotten how much I hated dressing like this. I guess my memories of Traverse Town are too swamped by other things that were going on: but now I'm worrying less about finances and health and bastards at work I am all too acutely aware of how uncomfortable these clothes make me. I fiddle with my sleeves, nervously. Larxene goes back to making Barbie viciously beat her boyfriend. I don't know where she has inherited this morbid fascination with domestic violence; I certainly don't remember doing anything like that when I was a kid. Admittedly, I did have some pretty destructive habits, but it's been a long time since I've hurt either myself or anyone else, and I'm pretty sure things like that aren't genetic.

I leave her to her extremely one-sided battle and inspect the flat instead. It's still just the same two-room deal, but this time the kitchen is hidden by a wall extending into the middle of the room, giving it more of a house-like feel, rather than just a bedsit with everything crammed into one place. There are the usual suspicious stains in inexplicable places, and two of the electrical sockets on the skirting board are broken in. The bed creaks so much that if I so much as breathe loudly on it it lets out an unhealthy groan, but at least the mattress is clean and smells only of foam. The toilet is caked in lime scale; so is the sink. One of the lights above the kitchen counters flickers. The fridge has a freezer compartment. The window opens wide over the metal beasts that are Radiant Garden's old machines, weeds growing on the frame. I stroke one of them affectionately, its little purple flowers shivering in the wind. "Hello, you," I say, wondering vaguely if I could cultivate these hardy specimens into something more beautiful.

"Mummy, you're talking to plants again," Larxene calls from the floor. I look pointedly at her. It's Demyx's fault she always says that.

"I'm allowed."

"Crazy," says Larxene. I ignore her, testing out the windowsill instead. My last one in Hollow Bastion collapsed after Larxene tried to climb on it, but this seems sturdy enough. I am already thinking about what plants will grow in this level of sunlight. Strawberries, maybe. Larxene would like those. We did have a few plants in Hollow Bastion, including but not limited to two spider plants, a miniature avocado tree (cultivated from a leftover stone) and a peace lily, but I had to leave them there. I gave them to my boring next door neighbour, who I expect will kill them all before the week is out.

"How about strawberries?" I ask. Larxene perks up suddenly. A while ago, in the hopes of convincing her to eat more healthily, I told her a fantastic lie that all red fruit and vegetables are that colour because they have been injected with human blood. Ever since then she has adored tomatoes, beetroot, raspberries and strawberries with an almost disturbing abandon. Ditto the carrots that I told her were actually unicorn horns (all horses, of course, being de-horned unicorns). My daughter worries me sometimes; but admittedly, I am not exactly trying to stamp out this behaviour if it means I can trick almost anything into her mouth with a sharp enough mind.

"To eat?"

"To grow."

Larxene flops down again. Ken is dead and Barbie is on the prowl for more victims, having just bayed at the moon. "That's boring," she says. I explain that we can eat the strawberries once we've grown them, but that doesn't impress her. I decide that she doesn't have a choice in the matter and I'm going to grow strawberries just for me, and if she won't help look after them then I'll just eat them all myself in front of her, as punishment. Because this will mean more strawberries for me, I don't press the issue further, instead changing the subject. "So is Barbie a werewolf now?"

"No, duh," Larxene says like I'm stupid, and doesn't deem it necessary to elaborate further. Then she looks at me very critically and says "You should wear high heels like Barbie."

"I'm too tall already," I say. I don't need to stand out any more than I already will. I pick up one of my recipe books and flick through it, wondering what to cook tonight. A recipe for pancakes pops out at me. Pancakes? For supper? Hell yes. It's only four in the afternoon; I can go out shopping for ingredients and acquaint myself with the town, then be back home in good time to put supper on the table (or at least, on our laps) by six. So I wrestle Larxene into her shoes (she hates shoes now), touch up my make up again, and step outside into the fresh August air, Larxene trailing grumpily behind me.

"We can also look for a social group for you to join," I say to her as we pass beneath the aqueduct. "Although it'll have to be a weekend one. You'll be starting school soon."

Most of the reason why I moved to Radiant Garden and not anywhere further afield was because I already had Larxene's name down on a waiting list for a school here. I was always half-expecting a pregnancy (for three years, every single second of every single day, through countless missed periods and false alarms), so I spread my choices as far and wide as possible: and I'm glad of that now, with my blouse hugging the bulge in my stomach and that eternal nausea festering sickeningly inside me. So Larxene is destined for Radiant Garden Primary School; considering its reputation I'm fairly sure I only managed to get her a place because they needed to fill up a socio-economic status quota.

"I don't want to go to school," says Larxene. I don't blame her. I found school singularly loathsome from start to finish (or lack thereof), a festering ground less for education and more for endless bullying. I doubt that Larxene, with her lack of social practice and second-hand charity shop clothes, will fare any better than me. But I have to at least try to convince her that it might help her in later life to do well at school.

"You'll enjoy it," I lie, "And anyway, it means you won't need a childminder any more." This at least makes Larxene pause thoughtfully, and by the time she speaks again it's on a completely different topic. We talk about nothing in particular, mostly because half of what she says doesn't make any sense, until we reach the central hub of the town and my girly whisper can't cut out above the crowds any more, at least not with Larxene's ears several feet below my mouth. Most people's gazes slide over me, but some of them stick; somehow I doubt it's because any of them have spied what they think is an attractive female.

Radiant Garden is the kind of place that has a hundred shops and no supermarket, so I spend longer than I would have liked popping in and out of little corner shops and grocers looking for pancake ingredients. But the florist I stumble across makes up for the pain that the rest of the high street turned out to be: I pull Larxene inside, ignoring her protests, floral scents overwhelming my senses. I gloss over the cut flowers, considering them a luxury I might afford once I have a job again, and head straight to the potted plants, Larxene complaining and complaining behind me. I try so, so hard to resist the miniature ivies but in the end my temptations win out. I buy the sickliest looking plant in spite of the consternations of the till keeper, as something of a personal challenge. And my flat already looks homelier with the plant sitting in the corner of the windowsill, basking in the evening sunlight.

"See? Doesn't that look good?"

Larxene doesn't care. She wants pancakes. If my daughter isn't concocting new ways of making her toys brutally kill each other, she's hungry. So I get her stirring the mix while I add ingredients, then we (mostly I) flip pancakes all evening, filling them with whatever needs eating up from the fridge. This leads to tuna and olive and mushroom pancakes, cheese and lunch ham pancakes, grape and banana pancakes, and several other even stranger combinations.

"Are we going to live here forever?" Larxene asks halfway through me reading her a story (she doesn't really follow along, because books bore her, but I figure it can't hurt to try).

"I don't think so," I reply. "Only until your little brother or sister is born."

"Oh," says Larxene, "How long is that?" I don't know why she's asking. Larxene has no concept of any future more distant than next week, if that. More to the point, I don't know either. Six months, maybe? It's hard to tell at this stage. At this point last time I was just worrying about getting fat. So I tell her it'll be a year, because she's going to forget in ten minutes anyway.

I go to bed when Larxene does, mostly because she finds it hard to sleep if I'm not there with her. Although she's usually a hateful little thing, she still cuddles up close to my chest at night, her fists curled tight into my pyjamas. I stroke her hair, as much to soothe myself as her. Like most nights, she says: "Tell me a story."

"I already did," I protest, glancing at the book still on the bedside table, silhouetted by the moonlight slipping through the cracks in the curtains. But Larxene shakes her head. "Tell me a real story." So, like most nights, I concoct a fantastic and thoroughly false tale where Larxene - the old Larxene - and I solve mysteries and capture evil criminal masterminds, each escapade more ridiculous than the last, until Larxene is asleep and I almost am too.

I dream that the baby inside me climbs out one day and tells everybody in Radiant Garden that I am a man, so I pack up all my things and move to a town where the buildings waver in and out of focus, everything I own weighing down my back, but then the baby tells everyone my secrets again, and again, and again, until with every step I take I hear my spine cracking a little more, my feet tripping over all of these children slithering down my legs, and I wake up in a cold sweat with Larxene still clinging obliviously to me, and when I cry in the bathroom the mascara I forgot to take off drips down my cheeks and turns me into a clown, a hideous parody of a normal human being - and it is Larxene, _Larxene_, who climbs onto my lap and holds my head against her chest and says "Mummy, mummy, mummy," and who, ultimately, saves my life.


	13. 13

It takes me a month to get a new job. I go down to the Jobseekers centre in town at the start of the week to hand in my CV, but the secretary takes one look at it and says in a very posh, snobbish accent "You didn't graduate? That's going to reflect badly on you", glancing conspicuously at the small child hanging off my hip. I purse my lips. "I have experience," I say, which admittedly doesn't count for much when my employment is limited to the very bottom range of jobs. The lady looks for positions that might be available to me, but draws a blank. There aren't many factories or cheap-shit shops in a nice place like this. I ask around at the counters I visit anyway, but there's precious little going around for someone like me; and although I check back at the Jobseekers centre every few days, nothing comes up.

Larxene, who views my unemployment as an extended holiday, enjoys the long hours we spend together in and out of our flat. It's the tail end of the summer holidays and the parks are still full of yummy mummies and screaming children, but the waterways are peaceful enough to set my murderous four-year-old free to roam. Demyx told me that it was best to start preparing Larxene for school early, to the extent of buying her a stack of story books I must have read to her a dozen times each, but sitting indoors doesn't really interest her when she could be splashing about in a foot of water, pretending to be a kraken and occasionally attacking unsuspecting seafarers (AKA me). I try to focus on the fact that she's imaginative and active. Maybe she'll grow up to be good at team sports. Well, maybe not _team_ sports, but… something. As long as she's not an utter failure at everything, I'll let myself off.

When it rains, we draw big messy pictures on greaseproof paper I acquired from a fish and chip shop in a long and complicated sequence of events. She draws monsters and killer barbies and princesses driving trucks (at least, I think they are driving trucks, but they might be elephants). One day she draws me in my jeans and t shirts holding hands with her, who is holding hands with me in my skirts and make up. "That's Daddy," she says, pointing to the me on her left. "And that's Mummy." It makes me want to cry. I buy blu tack and stick it to the wall. This gives Larxene ideas about what can and can't be on walls, and I come out from a quick shower the very next evening to find her scribbling on the peeling wallpaper. I physically pull her away.

"You can't do that, Larxene," I say in my most authorative voice, putting her back in the middle of the room. She looks at me.

"Why not?"

"Because," I say as slowly as I am thinking fast, "_Because _there's this thing about walls, whatever you draw on them comes to life in the night..." I pause for dramatic effect, revelling in the ways Larxene's eyes grow wider. "And tries to kill whoever drew it in their sleep."

Larxene lets out a shriek and runs around in circles until I catch her. I look her seriously in the eye. "But if you wash it off before dark, it won't come to life."

"Why does it want to kill me?" Larxene asks, leaning around me to look at her scribble. I have no idea if it's supposed to be something, but knowing Larxene if it is it's meant to be highly lethal.

"Because if it doesn't kill you then you can still control it, because you made it! So it can't do whatever it wants unless you're dead." This is a fantastic piece of ad-libbing, if I do say so myself. At least, I thought it was until I come back from a hasty shopping trip to find a dinosaur drawn with great care and attention on the wall.

"I want a pet T Rex," says Larxene, sitting in front of her masterpiece with neither guilt nor shame. "I'm going to call it Doggy." I realise in that moment that trying to scare my daughter into submission is probably always going to be a futile task. At least, not unless I _really _scare her. So I pretend that I'm terrified and I make a half-hearted attempt to wash it off but conclude dramatically that "It's stuck there forever" and make a huge show of "protecting" Larxene at night from the inevitable monster attack that she herself will have unleashed. I wait for her to fall asleep (in spite of her best attempts to outwait the dinosaur) then I carefully wash the dinosaur before sneaking into the kitchen area and dousing myself with tomato ketchup. Oh, the lengths I go to for discipline. I pick up a chair, testing its weight in my hands. Then I creep back to Larxene, turn my back, and let out a very loud yell of "Take _that_!" simultaneously with swinging the chair into empty space. Larxene wakes up with a scream, sees me brandishing the chair and promptly dissolves into tears. My job fighting the "dinosaur" complete, I conspicuously drop the chair and rush over to her. "Oh, Larxene," I wail theatrically, pulling her into my arms. "I really thought it would get you. It was _this close_-" I lean in to her face so she can see the ketchup in my hair and on my cheeks. "I'm so glad you're safe."

I realise that Larxene is hyperventillating. Maybe I overdid it a bit. I turn the light on and show her the empty patch on the wall where the dinosaur was. "Don't worry, it's gone now," I say. "I fought it off."

All right, it's an absolute pain scraping the ketchup off the floor and my white pyjama shirt is more or less ruined forever (although that doesn't stop me wearing it, casually reminding Larxene of the "blood stains" every time I do), but I never have problems with my daughter drawing on walls again.

Finally, I get a couple of interviews and manage to blag myself into getting a job tagging clothes in a "product assembly department" or, as I would call it, a factory. By this time, Larxene is starting school, her new uniform baggy around her skinny limbs and her hair conspicuously unkempt next to her spoilt classmates, so I no longer have to worry about childcare unless I need to work overtime. But I sit down and calculate everything very carefully (and in most cases twice, because Larxene keeps distracting me) and decide that I don't need to, at least not for a few more months. I settle into the work with an attitude of resignation, which leaves me for eight hours every day alone with my thoughts. I cope by, no joke, planning gardens in my mind. I start with empty grass rectangles, picking a type of soil, mean rainfall and compass orientation, and fill them with plants, spending ten, twenty, thirty minutes memorising each species so I never have to write anything down. I take into account how much shade they need, how much water, their average and tallest heights… it is truly pathetic, but it passes the time by. I surprise myself with how much I remember.

Larxene doesn't fare so well at school. She's not good with other kids, or indeed other adults, a shortcoming that becomes increasingly apparent as I find myself pulled aside by her teacher almost every day for some act of petty wrongdoing by my daughter that I, being her mother, am supposed to somehow magically prevent her from repeating. I try to explain to her that she is her own autonomous human being, but somehow that just doesn't cut it.

"Your daughter punched Cloud Strife," says the teacher disapprovingly, Larxene having already explained that it was because he wouldn't let her play football because she was a girl. I think that this is fair enough behaviour, but I make up a lie about how I'll thoroughly lecture her at home for her misdeed.

"Your daughter knocked a pot of paint over Ienzo Lillyford's family drawing," says the teacher with a long-suffering sigh. I privately wonder if that might have something to do with the fact that Larxene only had one person to put in _her _family drawing, and not Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandad like all the other kids, but of course I promise that by the next art lesson she will have better ettiquette.

"Your daughter got into a fight in the playground today," says the teacher on Friday. She looks as tired of this as I feel. Having spent a total of thirty eight hours planning fantasy gardens while tagging jeans this week, I ask how many other children were involved in the fight. "Three," says the teacher. I ask where their parents are. There is a long silence. I know I shouldn't, but as soon as I am excused I take Larxene out for an ice cream.

"This isn't for getting into a fight," I say, handing her the chocolate cone with strawberry sauce drizzled on top. "Even if I don't think you started it anyway. This is because the teacher is a-" I almost say bitch, but catch myself just in time- "A horrible woman who doesn't like you. But don't tell her I said that."

Larxene grins at me. She always likes me when I give her sugary food. "I swear on my life," she promises solemnly. Then we talk about school on the way home. I try to engage in what she's doing, partly because it gives us something not related to death and violence to talk about, but also because I read a news article the other week about how children whose parents don't care about their education become severely disadvantaged in later life and given how I - and most of the people I have ever called friends - turned out, I am inclined to believe it. So Larxene sings half of the alphabet to me and we count up to ten and back down again (which confuses her, because for at least five minutes after we do she thinks that nine is now more than ten and eight is more than nine, and so on and so forth). I want to tell her to wait for negative numbers and algebra, but her head would probably explode. Minus one apple? B equals every number there ever was? Mindfuck to the highest degree. For now, I will preserve her innocence.

"And then we did a science where we made things sink and float," Larxene finishes. Her eyebrows wrinkle in concentration. "The things that sank were a paper clip and ball and pencil and the things that floated were a cork and an apple and a paper. But then the paper sank so we put it in the middle. I don't want to walk any more."

"But I thought you wanted to go to the park," I say, picking her up anyway. Larxene doesn't see the contradiction in this, and just hugs me like a baby koala bear until I drop her unceremoneously in the grass. "Tag!" she yells, and flees, squealing. "You're it!"

Having never quite stamped out my competitive streak, I find it very difficult to lose to Larxene. It takes enormous mental restraint not to catch her when I'm it, and when it's her turn she usually throws a fit and refuses to play any more because I have always stayed just a foot or two out of her reach. The swings make a better game, because I win when I push her very high and so does she; then I sit with her on the deserted roundabout and pedal her in big slow circles until she tries to jump off and falls over instead, literally flopping face first on the floor. She gets a graze on her knees and her nose, which make her cry all the way back home and lash out angrily at me when I try to wash the dirt away with an antiseptic wipe and apply plasters. But once I've stuck out this ordeal she decides she likes the rugged, boyish look the plasters give her, even hitching up her school skirt so they are proudly on display.

"I'm telling them that I drew a dragon on the wall and then he came to life and I fought him and I won and now I have a pet dragon who has to do whatever I say and if they don't like me I'll get my dragon to burn them to death and I'm calling her Pussy and she's going to be yellow with spots," says Larxene all in a rush. I pat her on the head and ask if she wants to do more sink-or-swim science, which is a really, really sneaky way of getting her to help me with the washing up.

Life goes on. I get more and more pregnant, and also more and more convincingly female. Larxene doesn't get into trouble at school any less, but her teacher gives up trying to enforce every single little rule and just focuses on the basics like standard empathy and respect for authority instead. It's an uphill struggle for everybody involved, because empathy and respect for authority are not exactly things that I am much good at, either.

My biggest issue, in fact, is not with my soul-crushingly dull work or even Larxene's school, but rather the parents who linger around it at home time. Just like their precious children, they form cliques and, just like my daughter, I am instantly excluded from all of them. I had naively believed that the rumours that I was a wanton slut surrounding me in Traverse Town were just a product of the toxic environment I lived in, but nothing could be further from the truth: although the language used by the mothers gathered like chauffers by the school gate is less crass, their words are just as cruel. I tell myself that I didn't want to talk to them anyway as I shuffle Larxene away, hoping that the dark undertones of their whispers will pass her by. One day one of them actually comes up to me and asks me how old I am, and because I feel so intimidated by their flawless motherhood I lie, shoving Larxene behind me when she begins to protest "But you're only twenty-". Not content with this humiliation, the very same mother has the gall to ask me whether Larxene's father is the same as the man who conceived my unborn child. Either I don't want to give her the satisfaction of a reply, or my throat has choked up so much I couldn't if I wanted to: I'd rather not remember.

So I keep myself to myself, and Larxene follows my example, failing to make any friends at all in or out of school. I don't really register this consciously until one day Larxene says to me in an unhappy voice "Everybody in my class got invited to Yuffie Springfield's birthday party except me," and we both sit there looking at each other until Larxene ventures on, tremulously: "Everybody hates me".

"That's okay," I say, "Everybody hates me too."

Larxene not-so-inconspicuously climbs into my lap and makes herself at home there, pulling the spare folds of my skirt around her bottom. "Why does everybody hate us?" she asks. A lot of different answers pop into my head all at the same time.

"Because we're different," I settle for eventually. Larxene looks at me inquisitively: yeah, it wasn't really a good enough explanation for me, either. But I don't want to elaborate, so we just cuddle in silence for a few more minutes until Larxene gets bored and hops off, deciding that she wants to build a castle out of Duplo. I step over her construction site to the kitchen and start making supper, an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I miss Aqua and Demyx and Terra and the boring next-door-guy and everyone else in Hollow Bastion who made life just a little bit more worth living. The loneliness of Radiant Garden with its middle class, distainful inhabitants, hits me like a slap in the face. I feel like an outsider again, and it hurts.

I try the double-dinner trick on my new next door neighbour, but it's just an old woman who smells of urine and doesn't speak a word of English except "piss off". Upstairs in the bigger flat is a couple with about a hundred children who are so unruly that they make Larxene, my demon daughter, look docile. So all that happens in that department is that Larxene and I end up eating lasagne for breakfast the next morning, instead of cereal.

"You need a new coat," I say to Larxene as we walk to school, playing jump-the-crack to stop ourselves shivering in the cold air. It's December, and while Radiant Garden is a little more temperate than Hollow Bastion, the biting air isn't exactly pleasant on the lungs. Larxene is wearing the same coat from last winter, but it barely reaches her gloves, so a gap keeps opening up between her sleeves and her gloves, revealing a rapidly cooling strip of flesh. Unfortunately, I do not exactly have enough capital to buy Larxene a new coat. I've been making losses since I moved here, because my benefits are tangled up in red tape and needless beaurocracy and haven't come through yet. Almost all of my earnings disappear into that sink trap that is rent.

By the time we reach the school our teeth are chattering and Larxene's fingers are so stiff she can barely hold her book bag. I hurry her off up the path towards the school building, hoping that her hands will thaw before she has to do any writing. Usually at this point as soon as she disappears I turn on my heel and hurry to work, but today I make the mistake of glancing at the ensemble of mothers seeing their little darlings off at the gate. I try so hard to make my eyes sweep casually over the crowd, but they stick where a few Mums are chatting to each other, smiling at their gaggles of children, their breath coming out in smoke when they laugh.

I purse my lips and am about to tear myself from this tableau before the glass wall between us feels too thick when I suddenly notice a teenager fussing over a girl about Larxene's age. I must be staring at her for too long, because she happens to look up and waves nervously when she sees me. I quickly escape down the street, too frightened of actually talking to her to linger, but I keep catching her in the crowd morning and afternoon after that. At first I think she's another teen mum, like me, but I soon settle disappointingly on the only logical conclusion: she's got to be the little girl's sister, or else the elder mothers would be stigmatising her just like me.

In the end, I don't manage to summon up the courage to approach this pretty blonde girl in pastel clothes: she does it for me, sidling up to me with her daughter one afternoon while I'm still waiting for Larxene (or at least, a teacher come to talk to me about Larxene's latest misdeed). It's late December and soft freckles of snow are beginning to spot the ground, the children starting to come home with handmade Christmas decorations - in lieu of a tree, Larxene has been hanging hers on my ivy - and the mother's conversations are deviating even further from any contribution I might have made as the festive season progresses. Christmas dinners? Larxene and I have already decided to sleep in until noon then make pancakes. Presents? I can't even afford things that she needs right now, let alone wants. I hate these women for living in such a cosy, sheltered world, for complaining that they can't find a reasonably priced turkey with which to stuff their spoilt children, but I am also violently jealous of them.

I'm not in a great mood when this girl comes up to me and says in a gentle voice, "Hey?". I'm facing the very real possibility of being in debt by the time I have to quit work to have my next baby, because my benefits still haven't come in. I called up the relevant authority and they told me there had been problems with the photocopy of Larxene's birth certificate that I'd sent them, which I believe to be utter bullshit since apparently my passport - my passport that explicitly states that I am male - went through without a hitch. If this issue still isn't sorted by the time I need to go back to work, I won't be able to afford childcare for my baby. I've been fiddling and fiddling and fiddling with finances all day, to no avail, which has made me tense and jumpy.

"Hey," the girl says again when I don't reply, her accent as crisp and sharp as a frosty morning, "I just saw you around, um. So I thought I'd introduce myself. My name's Naminé, what's yours?"

I find myself admiring her eyes. I don't know why, because I don't exactly make a habit of liking things about females, but there's just something wise and melancholy in those deep blue eyes that attracts me to them.

"Marluxia," I say in my usual whisper. "I'm Larxene's mother." It still feels strange to think of myself as Larxene's mother and not her father; saying it out loud sends a shudder down my spine.

Naminé chuckles. "Yeah, Selphie's told me about Larxene." My response is automatic. Without even the slightest pause I go: "Oh dear." This is the kind of expectation I have of my daughter. By Naminé seems to think this is a joke, because she lets out a tiny little laugh again.

"I just thought I'd say hi," she says after an awkward pause. "I couldn't help but notice that you don't really talk to anyone." Is it really that obvious that I'm not part of Them? Evidently so.

"Well, thanks," I reply, mostly because I can't think of anything else to say. We look at each other. Naminé's clothes are quite obviously designer, from the way they flatter her figure even when designed as they are for the brutal depths of winter. I am just nurturing the usual jealousy inside my ribcage when a skinny little bundle of hate hits my legs, going "Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, I'm cold, carry me" in an insistant voice. I pick Larxene up and rest her on my narrow hip.

"I'd better go," I say to Naminé; "Our clothes aren't exactly made for this kind of weather." The falling snow has thickened since I arrived at the school gates, and I can feel it melting into my hair and sleeping through my cheap, holey shoes. I am already walking away by the time Naminé says goodbye, Larxene clinging to my coat like a baby sloth.

"Are you making friends?" She asks accusingly as I turn the corner, speedwalking in the hopes that I might produce enough energy to keep myself from freezing solid before we get home. "I doubt it," I reply; "She was just being polite." Larxene nods, satisfied by my lie. She's beginning to take pride in her status as a loner, deliberately shunning anyone who might try to approach her. I think she's using the fact that I'm the same to justify this, so understandably she doesn't want me to have any friends other than her. But unfortunately for her Naminé says hi to me the next day, and the day after that, and so on until by the time Larxene breaks up for Christmas I am actively seeking her out, an ally in this sea of hateful, judgemental mothers. She is, as I suspected, Selphie's big sister: their parents both work full time, so Naminé takes on most of the parental responsibilities. She's sixteen years old. I find myself looking at her more closely when she says this. Was I really so young - so _tiny_ - when Larxene was born? Naminé is barely more than half my height; she looks far too slender and delicate to bear a child.

"So, are you planning anything for the holidays?" She asks while we wait for Larxene and Selphie to come out. I shake my head.

"I'm just taking the day off work, that's all. We might go for a walk if it snows."

Selphie appears from the open doorway of the school hall, waving at Naminé as she hurries down the path. "Larxene got in trouble for biting Zack Fair, she'll be out in a bit."

Naminé and I glance at each other. Larxene gets into fights a lot, but she's never actually bitten anyone before, at least not that I'm aware of. Before I catch myself I ask in a surprised voice: "Where?"

"I didn't see it," Selphie says in that ponderous way that four-year-olds talk, letting Naminé fix her scarf and pull up her gloves. "But Ienzo says that she made him bleed."

Forgetting that there are children in the vicinity I say "Oh, Jesus Christ", the hair on the back of my neck already prickling. I hurry towards the gate, saying "I'd better go check everything's okay," to Naminé as I do. She offers to wait for me, but I flap her away. "Don't bother. I might be a while, if this is serious."

She looks at me with those deep, sad eyes. "Have a nice Christmas," she calls out. I want to say "You too," but I'm too far away for her to hear without raising my voice, so I just think it very hard as I push through the last few homegoing children towards the school. I already know from many past experiences where the Headmaster's office, and sure enough sitting in front of this stern-looking middle aged man are Larxene, Zack Fair and Mrs Fair.

"Ah, Miss Braefern," the Headmaster says when I appear in the doorway. "Please, take a seat. I take it you're aware of the situation."

Several snappy retorts pop into my head, but I bite my lip as I pick Larxene up and put her on my lap. She wriggles on my thighs and goes "You're cold, Mummy." I hug her tighter than she might have liked, trying to absorb some of her warmth.

"Please, Miss Braefern, try to take this seriously. Your daughter's behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, and at this point the consequences we have been discussing are severe."

I glance at Zack Fair, noticing that under his hat he has a bandage wrapped around his head. Larxene bit his _head_? Privately, I'm impressed: and maybe this shows in the way I raise my eyebrows, because Mrs Fair shoots daggers at me and actually pulls Zack closer to her, as though I might bite him too.

"What actually happened?" I ask; "I haven't heard the details."

"Your vicious little daughter seriously injured my son," Mrs Fair says venomously, which actually isn't an informative response at all. I'm about to say "I gathered that," but thankfully the Headmaster stops me making even more of an enemy of this woman by interrupting: "As I understand it, Larxene and Zack had a heated argument in the playground, which escalated into physical violence-"

"Physical violence," Mrs Fair spits angrily, "It was nothing short of a brutal _attack_."

"Larxene wouldn't "attack" anyone unless provoked," I say petulantly. The Headmaster gives me a Look.

"Miss Braefern, I understand that when disagreements occur it is rarely the fault of only one party, but Larxene seriously injured Zack. If she were at the age of criminal responsibility the police would be here with us now." The gravity of this situation is really not helped by the fact that Larxene glances at Zack and sniggers. I shake her a little, hissing her name to shut her up.

"I'm sorry," I say through gritted teeth, admitting defeat at long last. "I'll talk to her about it."

The Headmaster dismisses Zack and his mother, who are both apparently more than eager to leave our company, before continuing: "I know your situation at home isn't…ideal, Miss Braefern, but there is only so much we can do at school to discipline her daughter. These behaviours stem from outside of school. Now, I try to give all of the children at my school as good a chance as I can, but this isn't the first time Larxene has gravely injured a classmate, and I am inclined to believe that it won't be the last. As such, I have had to seriously consider whether or not I am happy to welcome her back to this school in the new year."

"You're expelling her?" I ask disbelievingly; "But she's _four_!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Braefern, but I can't put my other pupils in danger for the sake of your daughter."

My heart sinks: even I didn't get expelled from school until I was in my teens. I didn't even think that Larxene was doing too badly, considering the walls I was up against. Am I really that bad a parent?

"Give her one more chance," I say eventually, amazed at how choked up my throat has become. "If something like this happens again, I'll find somewhere else for her. I'll do what I can over the holidays." This last promise is a hollow lie: my only plan while Larxene is off school is to literally leave her at home alone while I work overtime. I've given up hoping that my benefits will arrive any time soon, and if I want to keep a roof over my head after Christmas then I've got to earn more money the hard way.

But the Headmaster just glances up at his clock. "I'm afraid we can't discuss this now," he says; "I have an important meeting to go to." More important than Larxene's education and future? I bristle inside, only just controlling my anger long enough for the Headmaster to finish while he rustles papers: "I will contact you in the forthcoming days."

"So is she coming back or not?" I demand disbelievingly. "Can't you tell me now?"

"Miss Braefern, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. Your daughter is, quite simply, uncontrollable. She has no respect for authority, no consideration for her fellow classmates, and takes absolutely no interest in anything her my staff try to teach her. This is not a decision I can make now."

The worst thing is that Larxene is still on my lap, listening to every word the Headmaster says to write her off. I instinctively pull her closer to me, until my bulging stomach feels uncomfortably compressed. I feel so sick that I don't say anything until the Headmaster has the documents he needs and has reached the door.

"Miss Braefern," he says. The word _Miss _hangs in my mind, stinging. Larxene wraps her arms around my neck so she doesn't tumble to the floor when I stand up, and out we go, into the empty corridor. It isn't until I step into the cold outside air and Larxene tucks her face under my hair that I realise she's crying.

"It's okay," I murmur gently, "It's going to be okay. I won't let him kick you out." I know I should be chiding her for biting Zack Fair, but right now I couldn't care less about that prissy little kid and his even prissier mother. We'll talk later when our breath isn't visible in the snowy air. And also when we're alone: in spite of my instructions to Naminé she's still waiting at the gate with Selphie, a worried look on her face.

"Hey," she says as I approach, putting Larxene on the floor so I can wipe her face. "What happened?" I'm about to explain that Larxene might not be coming back to Radiant Garden Primary School for another term, but Larxene interrupts me, saying in a loud and angry voice: "He said you were a slut."

My hand, sleeve pulled over it, freezes halfway up to Larxene's face.

"He said you were a slut," Larxene repeats more loudly, fuelled by our shocked silence, "And I said that was stupid because you don't even have a boyfriend! And he laughed at me and then I bit him."

Suddenly my insides have turned to ice. The world presses in on my skin and suffocates me. My spiteful, eloquent mind comes up blank when I try to think of something to say: all that happens is that the air in my lungs tumbles out as though my ribs have crushed it out.

"Nobody says stuff like that about you," Larxene says in a lower tone, sounding murderous. "I won't let them."

And I think, but people _can _throw that kind of abuse at me, because I'm alone and vulnerable and I don't have anyone to back me up except a grumpy four-year-old. But I can't say that to Larxene, because children are supposed to think that the world is still a benevolent place where wrongs are righted and dreams come true. So I just wipe the tears and snot off her face and say, very quietly, "Let's go home, okay." But Larxene just wails at me. She yells; "Why do you let them say stuff about you! Why is that okay! If I said someone's Mum was a slut I'd get into trouble!"

I say: "Don't use that kind of language, Larxene."

"Why _not_?" screams Larxene. And then she pulls out the ultimate small child complaint: "It's not fair! It's not _fair_!" And she cries openly and messily, head tipped back and eyes scrunched up tight against the snow falling on her face.

Welcome to the universe, Larxene. It's not fucking fair. Every odd that exists is stacked against you and the moment you try to fight against them you get accused of being unreasonable.

I glance up at Naminé, who is staring at both of us. I don't know what's going on behind her melancholy eyes and I'm not sure I want to. I'm pretty sure I can forget about making a friend of her. So I just scoop my distraught daughter up into my arms and walk past her without another word. What can I say? I'm already afraid that if I so much as open my mouth all this black tar that seems to be poisoning my chest will just pour out.

"Wait," says Naminé, jogging after me, "I wanted to ask if you wanted to come over for a cup of tea or something this afternoon." I shake my head, speeding up. Maybe I'll summon up the courage to talk to her in January, after this latest incident has faded into the great pool of insults in my memory. Maybe I won't ever see her again, if Larxene's not allowed back at school. I'll move again, somewhere cheaper and further away, to have my baby. I think I have about two months left; maybe I can just stay in Radiant Garden until then, and when I move I can go back to being their Daddy.

I leave Naminé behind at the school, ducking into an alleyway to shortcut through the town centre. I feel so exhausted, my babies weighing me down and pressing me on my mind. Eventually it's only the perishing cold that gets me home to a flat that isn't much warmer. I pull Larxene's wet clothes off and wrap her up in the warmest things I can find, ultimately turning her into a marshmallow huddled up on the bed. Then I put the kettle on and leave it boiling while I strip down, draping out wet coats over the barely-functional radiator.

"You're really fat," says Larxene from the bed. I look down at myself: I can't even see my feet if I stand up straight any more. "Yeah," I admit, resigning myself to my fate, "Yeah, I am."

I put on my pyjamas, which haven't fitted me for a while. I'd buy maternity clothes, but I don't have the money. Next time I'm heavily pregnant I want it to be in the summer so I can just let my belly hang out rather than worrying about the way my coat squashing my unborn child. Then once I've made tea for us I give Larxene her cup and settle down next to her under our duvet. These routine tasks have calmed me down a little, enough to say, "We need to talk about this, Larxene."

Larxene huffs audibly and turns away. I don't let her obstinate behaviour put me off, continuing: "I know people say horrible things about us. But that doesn't mean you can hurt them back. We have to play by their rules whether we like it or not." Larxene doesn't say anything. I think she's trying to pretend that I'm not telling her off. "Look, if you don't stop doing this then they won't let you back to school. And we'll have to move again."

"Well, I don't like it here anyway," Larxene grumbles. "I want to go back to Traverse Town."

Admittedly, I don't like it here either, and I also want to go back to Traverse Town: but that's not an option any more. So I start lying.

"Come on, Larxene, we have to stick this out. You're at a really good school right now, and you probably won't get that opportunity again." I sigh. This is probably an argument lost on my hedonistic daughter. "Do you want to be somewhere even worse?"

Larxene finally turns to face me, lying against my side. I wrap my arm around her to show her that I still love her. "I know it's hard. I'm the same. But when people say things you don't like, you just have to step back and control yourself."

"He deserved it," Larxene says. Suddenly she's animated again, almost spilling her tea all over herself: "And I'll punch him when I see him again!" I quickly push her back down.

"No, you can't do that," I tell her desperately, "This is exactly what I mean, Larxene. You have to calm down. You can't break the rules even if someone says mean things. Even if they hit you." And we look at each other, both knowing that it's not fair and it doesn't make sense. "I know it sucks," I venture on tentatively, "But that's just what you have to do."

"It sucks a lot," Larxene says sourly. She tucks her head up against my swollen chest, and there we stay together until I realise that I desperately need to pee.


	14. 14

Three days later, I get home from work at eight to find my apartment totally devoid of Larxene. The first thing that comes to my mind is, of course, the most terrible possibility: that someone came in and kidnapped her while I was at work, but just as I am ducking out of the kitchen I realise that her coat and shoes are gone, which means she must have left of her own volition.

I wonder why I thought that I could successfully leave Larxene alone for eleven hours without her disobeying one or more explicit orders. I check that she isn't hiding under the bed, then leave again, battling through the snow, which as been coming down in drifts for the last half hour. She's probably at the park: after all, where else would she go? But I'm still panicking by the time I reach its padlocked gates, crying out Larxene's name without care for the unfeminine depth of my voice. What if she isn't in the park? Where do I go then?

Climbing over the fence to get into the park is, quite simply, hell. Physical exercise is hard enough when you're heavily pregnant, let alone the kind of physical exercise that requires pressing yourself flush against a chain link fence. But through some mean feat of desperation I manage to fall over the other side and into the bank of snow on the other side. I peer around for footprints, but even though I can't see any in the snow that doesn't mean Larxene isn't here. So I tramp towards the playing field (empty), then the playground (no small children rocking solemnly on the swings or hiding under the slide) and finally the pond, just beginning to glint icily in the moonlight. I am already shivering; if Larxene's been here for hours she's probably hypothermic.

I wander around the park for ten, twenty minutes, then head up to the waterways in case Larxene decided to hang out there. By now I am seriously worrying that she decided to curl up in a little cubby hole and froze to death. The entire length of the canal that I run down is deserted. I wander around the town for a while, my shoes soaked through and my toes numb, but Larxene is nowhere to be found. Finally I return home, hoping only to thaw out before I go out hunting again. I'll have to call the police: so I plan to take some small change for a phone box some time.

I take the crickety old lift because my legs are protesting at every step I make, then wobble fatly down the corridor to our room. The light is on. And sure enough, when I unlock the door and go inside, Larxene is sitting on the bed in her clothes, dripping wet and shivering.

Before I can so much as open my mouth she says accusingly, "Where did you go?"

"Where did _you_ go?" I shout back, running a hand through my cold, wet hair. "I've been looking all over town for you!" My fear and panic has transformed into fury. "I told you to _stay here_! What part of that did you not understand?"

"I was bored," Larxene says sheepishly, dodging my gaze. I pick her up off the bed, suddenly also angry that she's left a huge wet patch on the mattress - a huge wet patch that we're going to have to sleep in - but I manage to show enough self-control to not call her up on it just yet.

"I told you to stay here to keep you _safe_!" I snap, "You could have been seriously hurt out there! What were you _thinking_?" I pull her coat off so roughly that her sleeves catch and her arms jerk backwards painfully, but I can't quite bring myself to apologise. "You can't just go out on your own! Do you know how _scared _I was?"

Larxene starts crying. She says pathetically, "I wanted to play in the snow."

"You can play in the snow when _I'm _here to look after you," I growl, towelling Larxene down. "What did I tell you about rules on Friday? You have to _follow _them. We didn't just make them up, they're there to protect you."

After that, Larxene doesn't complain any more, except to say that she's hungry: even though I already made her both lunch and supper before I left this morning. It turns out that she ate both of them at lunch time, which is one more thing to scold her for. It isn't long before I am at the point of arranging for her to have a babysitter over the holidays, even though I know full well I could never afford it. Four-year-olds are not designed to be left alone for any length of time, even with careful instruction and plenty of distractions. I wish I had a TV I could just sit her down in front of for hours on end: the problem with paper and building blocks and Barbies is that if Larxene doesn't have an audience, she gets bored.

Our relationship for the rest of the evening is strained, so much so that Larxene decides that she wants to sleep at the end of the bed - and even stays there for a full four minutes before admitting that it's too cold not to curl up in my arms. Her cold fingers and toes make me spasm as she needles against me, wriggling under my shirt in her search for heat.

"I was lonely without you," she says huffily once she's settled down. I'm not sure if she meant at the end of the bed, or in the flat on her own today. So I hug her tight and reply vaguely; "I'll be with you as much as I can." I wonder if I could find a club or something for her over the holidays, just to get her out of the house sometimes. But clubs cost money, and money is in short supply… "It's not for very long. Only until you go back to school." I suddenly remember my conversation with the Headmaster. _If _Larxene goes back to school...

"Can't you stay at home?" Larxene asks. In the darkness, her unpracticed voice sounds louder, bouncing around the room. I sigh, wishing that I could. I'd much rather play with Larxene than spend all day tagging clothes for well-off mothers to buy in boutique stores. The company, in an effort to make their clothes look less factory produced and more "personally home made", has indroduced handwritten labels, which are in reality just another excuse for my manager to shout at me, because being a school drop out I don't exactly have the best handwriting.

"I have to go to work, you know that." Of course, the best solution would be to take Larxene to work with me… But I quickly face the fact that that is never going to happen.

"You didn't go to work when we moved here," Larxene points out. "Yes," I agree, "But that was because I didn't have a job. And if I quit my job now, we wouldn't have any money." Even though I can't see her face, I know that Larxene's scowling, because her hands clench into fists and my nose presses against my cheekbone. "And we need money to do things like buy food and pay rent. If I couldn't pay rent, we wouldn't have anywhere to live."

"We could just stay at someone's house," Larxene says, not understanding that there is no equivalent to the haven that was Hollow Bastion's soup kitchen here. Often when I needed some time alone she'd stay with Aqua there, or we'd share the lumpy, comfortable sofa in Xigbar's flat if we couldn't be bothered to go home late at night. Larxene probably assumes that any acquaintence would take pity on us if we ran out of money: it's only through experience that I know better.

So I say: "When you were born, I didn't have enough money to pay for a flat, so we had to live in my car. It was cold and dirty and it made you sick all the time." I squeeze her against my chest. "I'm not letting that happen to us again. So I have to go to work."

Larxene yawns loudly and doesn't say anything. Ten minutes later, she's asleep. I settle down too, and wake up the next morning with a terrible cold that only gets worse. Larxene is ecstatic, failing to make the connection that by Wednesday I am not going to work because I am physicallly incapable of getting out of bed. She wants me to play games with her: I want to sleep.

"I'll be a doctor," she says when I explain that I'm ill, climbing onto the bed and pressing her face against my chest. I push her away, saying "Don't do that, you'll catch my cold." But since she's willing, I get her to pour me a glass of water and give me my pregnancy book. The gist of the pages I skim tell me that I just need to take care of myself. Lots of hot, bland, nutritious foods. Great, but I can't even get up to put the kettle on, and I am not putting my four-year-old in charge of anything that could seriously injure her, because I am kidding myself if I think there's a chance it won't.

"Being a doctor is boring," Larxene says three glasses of water and one glass of milk later. I suggest that she helps me get up to go to the toilet, which makes her wrinkle her nose in disgust and come up with an excuse that is actually ingenious: "Nurses help people go to the toilet, not doctors." I can't fault that. But I also can't wet myself, so in a feat of great strength I heave myself out of bed and waddle over to the bathroom. Then I have just about enough energy to wet a tea towel with hot water and make a mug of packet soup before I collapse back into bed. Larxene, sitting on the other side of the room with a blanket wrapped around her, watches me beadily. Occasionally she says "Are you better yet?", my reply to which is a very clogged up "No".

I go back to work on Friday, not because I am feeling any better but because if I want to take three days off of work I have to have a note from the local doctor, and if I go to the doctor my pregnancy is probably going to come up and there are going to be a lot of questions I won't be able to answer, and in the end it's really not worth it for just a cold. My productivity is at about a quarter of its usual levels, but thankfully my coworkers are too busy discussing the imminence of Christmas to notice me almost falling asleep every five minutes. I wobble home, stopping every few hundred metres to sit down and rest, shivering and sneezing and generally feeling so terrible by the time I finally push the door open that I don't even realise it isn't locked. Inside, I immediately look around for my daughter, but there's not one but two girls sitting on the bed, one braiding the other's hair.

I try to say; "Naminé? What are you doing here?" but I sneeze halfway through. The teenager gives me an unimpressed look and replies somewhat judgementally; "I'm looking after your daughter."

Even though I just want to crawl into bed, I force myself to fetch a glass of water instead. It's testament to how cold I am that this water, which has travelled through freezing outdoor pipes to reach me, feels warm.

"I dropped by to see how you were doing," Naminé says, sounding genuinely concerned. "I found your address on the school database, before you think I'm a stalker. Anyway, I can't believe you just left Larxene here on her own all day." And as if this telling-off is not enough, Larxene herself adds an accusing "Yeah, Mummy," from the bed.

I sigh.

"I wouldn't if I had any other choice." I pull off my sodden coat and drape it over the radiator, "But I can't afford to take time off work. Or," I add before Naminé pulls out this argument, "A childminder. She knows how to contact me in an emergency." (This is a lie, but it makes me sound more responsible than I really am.)

"She's _four_, Marluxia," Naminé says insistently. I think to myself, I am being lectured on parenthood by a mere child; this has to be some kind of new low for me. "Look at the time! You can't leave her alone for so long. That's really dangerous."

"I told you, I don't have any other choice," I reply tiredly, pulling out a dry change of clothes and heading towards the bathroom. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"

"I came to see how you were, like I said."

At this stage I literally have no recollection of her saying that earlier. Things are beginning to be a bit of a blur. Vaguely, I wonder how legible today's clothes tags are. Probably not very.

"Well, okay, you can go now," I say, flopping into the bathroom and shutting the door. My clothes are literally plastered to me, but whether with sweat or melted snow I can't quite make out. I peel off my shirt and undo my (now somewhat too-small) bra, grabbing a towel to rub the moisture off my skin. Everything seems to take three times as long with this heavy fog over my eyes, but finally I find myself beginning to thaw. I touch up my make up, or at least attempt to, before leaving the bathroom. Naminé has not left.

"You don't look well," she says with more concern, Larxene now attempting to pull her hair into a plait (literally; every time my daughter tugs on a strand of that soft blonde hair, Naminé's head jerks backward a little). I sniff gallantly.

"Just a cold." I must say this very brusquely, because after that Naminé changes the subject, saying; "Hey, Marluxia, you can leave Larxene with me during the day if you want to. I'm already on babysitting duty for Selphie, so I don't mind doing it. I just don't think she should be left here by herself."

My first reaction is "absolutely not". Prolongued exposure to other people only increases the possibility of Larxene saying something horribly damaging about me and, more importantly, my past. I don't think with a stomach my size anyone suspects me of not actually being "Miss" Braefern, but all Larxene has to do is casually talk about her "Daddy" and Naminé will come asking awkward questions. But under further consideration, I have to admit that it would eliminate the possibility that Larxene will a) run off again, b) seriously damage herself in my absense and c) seriously damage something else in my absense. So I put on my most sociable smile, nod, and say "That would be really helpful, if you don't mind."

"I'll have to check with my parents," Naminé says, "But it should be fine. They're out most of the time anyway." She prises Larxene away from her half-braided, half-backbrushed hair and stands up, smoothing herself down. "Anyway, I'm sorry for just dropping by. I thought you'd be at home, you know, holidays and all." She lets out a one-syllable laugh. "Here, I'll write down my address for you, if you just want to drop Larxene off in the morning on Monday."

The realisation dawns on me that I have just acquired a free babysitter. Finally, something has happened in Radiant Garden that has turned out to be to my advantage. I thank Naminé again and again, and let her out. Larxene, who has already snuggled up in bed, looks at me.

"What?"

"Are you Daddy again?" she asks. I look down at myself: no, I'm still wearing a pink t-shirt that stretches unflatteringly over my baby bump, and a skirt that hits my ankles. "I thought you only talked to other people in a normal voice when you were Daddy," Larxene continues, genuinely confused. My heart sinks like a stone. Shit. Oh, _shit_. So bogged down by my long day at work and my groggy cold, I had completely forgotten to whisper to Naminé. I pray to the god that I don't believe in that I'll be able to successfully blame my unrealistically deep voice on the cold.

"I'm still Mummy," I say, whispering again. "Don't get too comfortable, you still need to brush your teeth." And I pull a protesting Larxene out of the bed and mercilessly force the toothbrush upon her. I'll just have to keep Naminé at arm's length. She wouldn't seriously think I was actually a man, would she? I'm far too obviously pregnant. And by the time my feminine hormones begin to fade, I can move out of Radiant Garden and leave her far behind.


	15. 15

And perhaps Father Christmas does exist after all, because a few days after the Headmaster reluctantly gave Larxene one more chance at school I receive a cheque in the mail with this month's benefits. And last month's, and last month's, going right back to August when I moved here. I almost burst into tears with joy as I huff and puff my way up the stairs back to my flat, at once holding the envelope firmly and very carefully, as though crumpling the cheque could make it disappear. I spend the evening budgeting on the backs of Larxene's paintings: if my baby is due to arrive some time in February, then I'll need to stop working at the end of January…how long can I afford to stay at home? I cast my memory back to when Larxene was born, glancing at her as I do so. She's grown so much, into this scrawny, grumpy little kid who pulls the limbs off her fifth-hand dolls and eats courgettes because I told her they were made from troll bogeys. I'm just contemplating my utter failure as a parent when she looks at me with those big watery eyes.

"I don't think Naminé's mum and dad like us," she says offhandedly, the syllables sticking in her mucusy throat. She's developing a bit of a cough. I heave myself up off the floor, my knees clicking, and pull one of our blankets off the bed so I can wrap it around her shoulders. She nestles into it, sniffing conspicuously. "Today they got home before you came to pick me up. I said hello but they looked at me funny."

I sit down again. "At least Naminé seems to like you." This optimistic analysis makes Larxene lighten up a little.

"We played dressing up today. Selphie has lots of dresses. I got to wear one, it was blue with bows and a ribbon at the back and flowers on the bottom."

"I bet you looked really cute," I say, punching numbers into my tired old calculator. Bits of the screen have stopped working, so I'm never sure about things like whether the third digit in is a six or an eight, but it's still better than my mental arithmetic. Maybe I could even get Larxene a late Christmas present. Something useful, maybe, like food.

"Not as cute as Selphie," Larxene says sourly. "I looked weird." She toys with her picture book, tormenting the pages. "I want a haircut," she adds finally, "Like Selphie. I want pretty hair." Larxene has never had her hair cut: there have always been better things to spend money on. It hangs around her shoulderblades, a bright blonde that might look like silk with proper care, but thanks to the ultra-cheap shampoo in the bathroom just forms ratty tails around her neck. She knows that I couldn't pay for a hairdresser, even a cheap one, so I don't say anything in reply. After a while she says "Oh, and Naminé asked me to say, do you want to come over on tomorrow, because her parents are going out." She gives me an imploring look that says "Please say yes". We engage in a silent battle of wills. Finally I give in, saying "Okay, but not if your cold gets worse."

"I don't have a cold," says Larxene in a suddenly much clearer voice. She loses interest in her book, crawling over to me. "Are you doing money stuff again."

"Sadly, yes." I look over my hand-drawn spreadsheets, almost every figure scrubbed out and written again several times. "I'm trying to put some money aside so I don't have to work after I have my baby."

"You get to stay at home?" Larxene asks excitedly, putting her greasy fingers all over my hard work, much more interested now. She reads the numbers aloud, slowly and deliberately: "One, four, two, oh… one, three, ten… ruh-en-tuh. Rent."

"Yes, that's all of this," I say, gesturing to the chilly, threadbare room around us. "And this column is for utilities, that's water and electricity and gas, and this column is for food..." I've lost her, evidently, because she interupts with a loud: "But you're staying at home after the baby is born?"

"Well, for a few months, hopefully," I say, not wanting to get her hopes up. I'll have to get back to work eventually: even tax credits only go so far. Larxene now puts her cold hands on my baby bump, waiting until she can feel my unborn child wriggle, whereupon she says urgently: "Hey, come out _now_. I want Mummy to stay at home with me."

I half prise her away, half pull her into a hug, her chin resting on my shoulder. "I don't think it can understand English yet."

"Ienzo Lillyford in the other class has a baby sister," Larxene tells me. "His Mum brought her in one day and we all got to have a look. Everyone said she was super cute. But she was ugly."

"You were ugly too, when you were born," I say. "But I still thought you were beautiful. That's what Mums are supposed to do." I wonder if my mother thought I was beautiful. I think about her less these days, which is funny, because she always used to have a greater presence in my mind when I was lonely and miserable before. Larxene laughs at me and she says "You're silly". I think that maybe she's right, especially when I find myself shaking nervously at the front door of Naminé's beautiful semi-detached brick house the next morning, all too aware that her parents' cars are still parked in the drive. We shiver for a few minutes in the cold and snow, Larxene clinging to my back, when a small but severe-looking man in a two-piece suit and a substantial raincoat opens the door.

"You must be Miss Braefern," he says as I quietly try to pretend that I am not significantly taller than him. He looks up at my daughter and adds politely, "Hello, Larxene."

"Hello Mister Naminé's Dad," says Larxene. Actually, her cold is a little bit worse than yesterday, and you can hear it in her voice, but I didn't have the heart to keep her in bed when she wanted to go to a warm house overflowing with fancy dress costumes and hot chocolate so much.

"Come in," says Mister Naminé's Dad, stepping aside for us. I stamp snow out of my feet on the doormat just as a patter of feminine feet signifies Naminé running down the stairs to greet me. Almost as soon as she's arrived, her father disappears off outside with nothing more than a grunt of "Goodbye," to his daughter.

"He's very shy," Naminé says as he drives away, ushering us into the kitchen where Larxene reluctantly climbs down off my back. "You shouldn't be forcing your mother to give you piggy backs," Naminé chides, "Pregnant women aren't supposed to carry heavy loads."

"Are you calling me fat?" Larxene cries out, her face crumpling into a laugh, and Naminé rushes at her and picks her up and goes "Oh, _you_," as she swings her about, finally sitting her down on the work surface. I look on enviously as Naminé tickles Larxene into submission. It's been a long time since I've had enough energy to do that sort of thing. "All right, now I've got to make tea for your Mummy. Do you want hot chocolate?" Larxene nods vigorously, still giggling. I happily ease myself into one of the high seats against the counter, gently thawing out while Naminé amuses my daughter by telling her some story about a spotty teapot. Very briefly, an ironic thought occurs to me: isn't this what fathers do? Look on while their children play with their mothers?

"I'd ask if you wanted to come upstairs, but you look very comfortable there," Naminé says once a hot cup of tea is in my hands. I force myself to stand up again, just in time to see Naminé's mother disappearing out of the door. We glance at each other as she goes, and as we do something strange happens: we are suddenly joined together for that very brief moment, two mothers who might be worlds apart but still have the same hopes and fears and loves for their children. But then she frowns just a little bit, and when she's gone my chest feels a little empty, the way it always does when I realise I've been judged.

"Mum thinks you're going to be a bad influence on me," Naminé laughs, shovelling Larxene onto the floor again. "You know, with the whole pregnant thing and all. Like it's contagious."

"Imagine that," I say dryly. We go upstairs into Naminé's cute little bedroom, which doesn't look like it's been redecorated since she was six years old: a pink wallpaper adorned with cupcakes smiles down on us, a collection of fluffy and well loved teddy bears cuddle on the bed, and the lavendar carpet even through my wet shoes feels soft and inviting. In fact, the only things that suggest that the inhabitant of this room isn't a little girl are the posters of some horribly attractive male pop star gazing stoically down at me, hair perfect and facial scars forming an attractively rugged X across the bridge of his nose.

"Feel free to take your shoes off," Naminé says, noticing me glancing floorwards. I shake my head, murmuring something about it being too much effort (you try being flexible with a baby stuck to your belly), but by the time I've settled down into a bean bag chair it's not too much more to ask of my already tortured spine to reach over and untie my shoelaces. "Selphie's staying at her friend's house," Naminé says when she notices me looking around for the bouncy little girl who usually accompanies my free babysitter. Then she turns to Larxene. "Hey, Labby," she goes, "Do you want to go downstairs and watch TV for a while? I promise I won't tell on you." And sure enough Larxene nods and hurries away, waddling a little as she goes, trying her best not to spill her hot chocolate.

"Labby?"

"That's what Selphie calls her."

I look at Naminé. I look at the posters, feeling a familiar pang of that odd emotion probably only gay people can experience, a mixture of longing and jealousy. I want that muscle tone and smooth, masculine jawline and intense gaze. I also want somebody with all those features, and as far as I'm aware most straight women don't want to resemble their ideal partners. I look at the easel set up in the corner, a half-finished painting resting on its horizontal bar.

"That's nice," I say, cocking my head towards it. Naminé gushes and hurries over to take it down.

"Oh, no, no, it isn't finished yet. Goodness." She stows the canvas away behind the easel. "I'm doing it for my Mum's birthday."

"Do you want to go into art?" I ask, suddenly noticing how tiny Naminé's feet are. I carefully tuck mine under my skirt, hoping that she didn't notice them before.

"I don't think so. I just like it as a hobby. I think I'm probably going to go into my Dad's company when I leave school."

"Your Dad has his own company?" I ask, unable to keep the jealousy our of my voice. Without meaning to, I begin to fantasise about what kind of business I would own, if I could. A garden centre, maybe, or a plant nursery.

Naminé blushes. "Yeah, Mum works there too. It's just a consultancy thing, but, yeah. You probably think it's awfully elitist and upper-class for them to get me a job at the company, but I don't really know what to do with my life anyway, so, you know. I'll still have to work hard and pull my weight to get a good job there."

"Can they get me a job?" I ask, joking into eternity. But Naminé doesn't realise, because she says in that same bright, well-meaning voice: "Maybe, if you did business or ICT at school." This innocence makes me laugh bitterly.

"I left school at fifteen, Naminé. I didn't even graduate." I say this with a coldness that she maybe doesn't deserve, but before I can correct myself she looks down at her thumbs and promptly changes the subject.

"Hey, Marluxia, I asked Larxene to go downstairs because I want to talk to you, you know, about how you are."

I look away, hoping that my hair is long enough to disguise the Adam's apple in my throat. This is stupid, I think, that I'm so terrified that she's going to realise I'm a man, because for God's sake I am so fat I couldn't even pass this bulge off as a beer gut: but the worry is still there, tugging at me restlessly. I pull my shoulders closer into my body and hunch my back more. Hands, I think suddenly, ihands/i, too big, too masculine; before I know it I'm pulling the sleeves of my jumper over my fingers. The pop star silently judges me. He knows, and he sees that I am pathetic.

"I know you're kind of struggling right now," Naminé continues when she realises I'm not going to tell her how I am. "Larxene's told me some things-" Legitimate hot panic flushes, however briefly, through my system, like the shudders you get at night when the sheets crumple around you and suddenly it feels like insects are crawling all over your body- "About not being able to have heating and not doing anything for Christmas, and, I just want to say, if there's anything I can do to help out, financially..." she trails off, sitting down on the floor next to me. Is she offering me money?

"God, Naminé, no," I say, putting my head in my hands. Suddenly something inside me hurts, maybe because I've missed the kindness of strangers so much, or maybe because I know that if I was rich and she was the pregnant one I probably wouldn't offer her a single munny. "You barely even know me. And besides, it's fine, my benefits finally came through yesterday so I've got enough to tide me over."

"You're on benefits?" Even though she tries, Naminé can't disguise that tone of voice all well-off people take on when they talk about welfare. "I thought you were working?"

I look at her through my fingers, trying not to be angry at her for her ignorance. "Yes, but most of my pay goes into rent, and the rest of it isn't really enough for two of us." She looks at me guiltily and doesn't say anything, so I add, "And my job doesn't come with maternity leave, so I've got to save up for that too. And a babysitter for when I do go back to work."

"It must be really difficult trying to get by on your own," Naminé says. I sit up a little straighter, but only so I can drink my tea. It's still hot, and the liquid almost scalds my throat, but I appreciate the warmth. Larxene really wasn't exaggerating about not being able to afford heating. I nurse my cup, happening to notice a chip in the china as I do so.

"I'm kind of used to it," I say. Naminé shuffles awkwardly. Suddenly I have half a mind to tell Naminé what it was like at the beginning, the real beginning, when all I had to sleep in was the back seat of a banged-up old car, and the only way to stop lechers peering down the front of my shirt and slapping my arse was to pick the least dangerous of them and stick to him, because she hasn't got a clue in her pretty bedroom with her life sorted out for her how fucking difficult it is for the rest of us, but something in her melancholy eyes and her sweet little face stops me. "I mean, I owe you for looking after Larxene during the day anyway."

"Oh, no, don't worry about that. I'd do it for longer if I didn't have to go back to school." I don't think my conscience would let her even if she didn't, actually. We sit quietly for a while, picking out the sounds of Larxene yelling gleefully at the television downstairs. Finally Naminé says: "If you ever want to talk to me about, you know, girly stuff, then feel free. I know the other Mums at school don't really talk to you, and." She stops suddenly. Her expression is tortured. She looks away and says, "I really don't like how they're treating you. The manager at the factory you work in is a friend of my Mum's, and sometimes the others talk about you at the school gate. Some of the things they say about you are just, really…really _mean_."

And for some reason, the fact that the idle "But she's so young, isn't she"s and "I'm only letting her stay on the team because she's pregnant"s that I hear from the Radiant Garden childbearing collective upsets Naminé so much is almost more heartbreaking than overhearing those comments myself. Maybe I'm just jealous that's she's so innocent, that she doesn't have this thick skin I had to develop if I didn't want to be crushed underfoot by people who didn't give two shits about me.

So I shrug. "I've had a lot worse." Somewhere in the back of my mind, I happen to wonder why Naminé always looks so sad, not just when she's taking it upon herself to care about me but all the time; even when she laughs and jokes with the children there's this quiet pain behind her eyes.

She stands up, putting her tea aside. And then she says "I don't want you to feel lonely," and I want to laugh at her because she's so sweet, at least until she reaches down and gathers me into her arms. I don't mind Larxene using me as a human pillow, taxi and climbing frame because she isn't fazed by my hard, solid bulk, but I still automatically shy away from any other kind of human contact, including Naminé. She senses my discomfort and pulls away quickly, but she still knows what I am like underneath my loose clothes, and that frightens me.

"I think Larxene's been watching TV for long enough," she says, and disappears down the stairs, calling "Labby! Labby!" as she does so. Labby. I'm not sure if I like it or not. My friend Larxene, the first Larxene, certainly wouldn't have ever stood for it (the closest she came to having a nickname was when she briefly decided she wanted everyone to call her the Black Queen of Death, but it never caught on). While Naminé tries to prise Larxene from the telly, I fiddle nervously with my hair and adjust my clothes, my hands finally coming to rest on my stomach. I can feel the baby moving, not its usual restless kick but the gentle vibrations of a little person in there, already very much alive.

"Hello, you," I say half affectionately. "I hope you don't turn out to be as loud as Larxene was. A quiet baby would be really nice this time around." This makes me laugh. I wouldn't be so lucky.

I hear Larxene coming back up the stairs long before I see her, her voice deafening by the time she launches herself at me with a yell of "Bean bag! Bean ba-_ag_!" We struggle for control of the bean bag chair for a moment or two, but like a good parent I let her get it in the end, joining Naminé on the bed instead.

"So," I say, pointing to the posters, "Who's this? A celebrity crush?" This makes Naminé blush all over again.

"S-Saix Kaeman? I just like his music," she says. I'm not sure I believe it. Not with four copies of his pretty face gazing impassively down at me. "He comes from Radiant Garden, actually. My friends and I are going to go see him live in February, hopefully."

I look at Saix Kaeman's face. "He's quite cute," I admit. "Probably wearing more make up than I am, though. Is that conspicuously photogenic scar real?"

Naminé nods. "Yeah, apparently he got attacked once by a gang." Then she quickly adds: "I think, anyway. I remember reading about it in the paper, is all."

"We knew a guy with scars on his face once," Larxene announces from the bean bag. She's making it into an impressive nest, wriggling around until the beans are all in the perfect position for lounging. "He had an eye patch and he never showed me what was underneath so I think he had a bi-on-ic eyeball. Also he stole Mummy's boyfriend but I don't remember that." I give Larxene a stern look: she's not supposed to talk about the past, even when I'm around to clamp my hand over her mouth if she starts saying things that are too delicate.

"Who told you I used to be with Demyx?"

"He did," says Larxene, her voice somewhat muffled by the bean bag, which she is exploring with her face. I frown in her general direction, wondering what else Demyx might have told her.

"It sounds like you've had an interesting past," Naminé says. I wouldn't exactly call it interesting, as such, so I just shrug at her.

"I used to live in Hollow Bastion." I hope she knows enough about the crumbling old town for that to be adequate explanation, and luckily she smiles knowingly, saying "I went there once." I want to say try living there, but suddenly I remember that even through I called Hollow Bastion my home for four years I still hardly knew anything about the dusty construction sites and resilient residents. So the conversation moves on, to other things, children and school and toys and cooking and cute males and everything else that real girls are supposed to talk to each other about. Then Selphie gets home and we have lunch. The girls make a snowman. I fall asleep on the sofa. Naminé gently wakes me up after dark when it's time for Larxene to go home, and as I gather up my flimsy coats and push Larxene's gloves onto her wriggling hands she murmurs very gently in my ear;

"I mean it, if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me."

I nod. "I know. Thanks." She brushes her hand against my arm very briefly. I realise dully in that moment that I have made the mistake of letting somebody into my life again, but somehow I can't quite bring myself to make plans to drive Naminé away again as soon as I don't need her any more.


End file.
